THE A77 Action Group visited the leader of South Ayrshire Council in a bid for a consensus to work together to improve the road.

Douglas Campbell invited members of the group to a meeting on Thursday, January 4 in Ayr to share concerns about the future of the A77 and the effect the road is having on potential economic opportunities for South Ayrshire.

Speaking about the session a spokesman for the group said: “It was obvious from the meeting opening that we share many of the same concerns over the local economy, the development opportunities, on the areas tourism in both Ayrshire (as a whole) as well as Dumfries & Galloway.

“It was noted how much easier these aspects would improve with better road and rail infrastructure. 

“We centred on the importance of the A77 corridor to ‘the bridge’ to Ireland as well as linking central belt Scotland to the whole of Ireland.

“With the request for further meetings, and a consensus to work together for real improvements on A77, this is about doing what is needed for Scotland and The South West in particular.”

Transport Scotland announced on Monday, January 1 there would be some £20bn invested on Scotland’s roads over the next 10 years. 

The group say they are proud of their achievement and investment so far on the A77 and A75.

Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work, Keith Brown said:

“We’ve made significant improvements to key areas on the A75 and A77 delivering better connections to and from our key port at Cairnryan, and work on new bypasses for Dalry and Maybole are moving apace.”

But the A77 Action Group do not agree with this statement. 
Their spokesman added: “Journey times still need to be improved, the improvements made are not significant enough. 

“A dual carriageway is what significant improvement means not three lanes that promote dodgy overtakes at the far of them into oncoming traffic. 

“These three lanes give 0 per cent journey time improvement to the strategic heavy goods vehicles.”