A long-running road restriction which has caused misery for motorists has come to an end.
Temporary traffic lights have finally been removed from a section of the A76 — more than five years after they were first put in place.
They had been there so long that the route has been billed as “Scotland’s forgotten road”.
Work to re-route a stretch of the highway, at Enterkinfoot, away from an unstable embankment has now been completed.
The “temporary” lights had been restricting traffic since a landslide caused chaos five years ago.
Work on the £2.8 million scheme, which saw a new stretch of road created between Sanquhar and Thornhill, was scheduled to take 30 weeks.
But the project has now allowed the removal of the lights after the new road corridor was unveiled at the weekend.
The news has been welcomed but has been accompanied by the warning that there is “no substitute for proper investment”, alongside calls for further upgrades.
South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth said: “To say this completed work is long overdue would be a major understatement.
“We have just marked the fifth anniversary of so-called temporary traffic lights being placed on the road which reduced what is supposed to be a trunk road to a single lane.”
“It really is quite shocking that it has taken so long to carry out what is ultimately a repair job. There will be a sigh of relief that the temporary lights have gone and the road is safer because it has been moved away from the embankment.
“However, I travelled the road several times at the weekend and although a couple of bends have been removed, there is no gain as far as journey times are concerned as the short stretch of road remains single carriageway in both directions.”
Mr Smyth, who is Scottish Labour’s transport spokesman, added: “As far as a road improvements are concerned this is a very modest spend. It is no substitute for proper investment to add passing lanes to properly upgrade what has become Scotland’s forgotten road.
“Without that investment communities in upper Nithsdale are going to continue to struggle to attract employers into the area.”
