Emails pertaining to road works and road closures of the A82: EIR release

Information requested

Information sent by email, pertaining to the road works and road closure of the weekend 13th and 14th March on the A82 Stirling Road (Dumbarton) / Junction with Glasgow Road (also commonly known as the Milton Junction to local people.

The A82 (Stirling Road) from Dumbarton to Milton was reduced to a single lane and Glasgow Road from Dumbarton to Milton Junction was closed. Can you advise me:

1) What the works were for?
2) What was the emergency nature of the works?
3) When was the decision made to undertake these works?
4) How was the information disseminated to the local people and those in the surrounding areas;
5) The Traffic Lights at the Milton Junction (A82 Stirling Road / Glasgow Road) were left to run their usual cycle
of red, amber, green despite Glasgow Road being closed, can you advise why this decision was made?

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the EnvironmentaI Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2000 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

1) The reason for these works were to allow carriageway resurfacing of the southbound carriageway of the A82 trunk road from Dumbuck Quarry to Colquhoun Rd.

2) The works carried out were not of an emergency nature but were planned resurfacing work.

3) This carriageway resurfacing scheme was included in our Operating Company's original Structural Maintenance programme for 2020/21. Each scheme has to be designed and approved and our Operating Company, Amey was given approval for the scheme to proceed in January 2021.

4) Information was published in both local and national newspapers, social media, and letter drops to adjacent properties and businesses. Signs were also placed on site in advance of the work alerting motorists to the proposed works. Amey have a roadwork alerts service that people can sign up to for free at Roadwork Alerts |South West Trunk Roads (swtrunkroads.scot), and details of this scheme were included.

5) The carriageway resurfacing work was planned to be carried out using a number of overnight closures of the southbound A82 trunk road. This was for the safety of the resurfacing operatives and motorists and to reduce the impact on the trunk road and local roads network. Part of the works involved a deeper treatment which required to cool before being opened to traffic, which would be achieved by coning off a length of the road until mid-morning on the following day.

This deeper section was in the nearside lane of the southbound carriageway and started just before the traffic signals and continued to the Milton Inn access. To minimise disruption to the travelling public this section of the work was planned for the Friday night and the traffic management was to be removed during Saturday morning.

While the design was underway it was found that lorries travelling from the A814 to the eastbound carriageway of the A82 could not make the turn without overrunning the works. Following discussions with West Dunbartonshire Council it was decided that the only solution was to close the A814 in the eastbound direction beyond Greenhead road. Given that this closure was only due to be for a short duration on the Saturday morning it was considered that the signals at the Dumbuck junction did not need to be altered.

Unfortunately, as the surfacing operations were underway, issues around the access and egress at the Dumbuck junction did not permit all the resurfacing work planned for the Friday night to be completed. This resulted in the traffic management on the southbound carriageway of the A82 remaining in place all day on the Saturday and consequently the eastbound closure on the A814 could not be removed. Removing a stage from control on traffic signals requires a new control chip in the signal controller and this was impossible within such a short timescale. 

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