A retained firefighter in Forfar fears the town’s roadworks could be putting lives at risk.
The end-of-year work on major routes St James Road and West High Street in Forfar has left many motorists and business scratching their heads.
Roy King, an on-call fireman who owns a garage on Queen Street, said he and his colleagues in the service are frustrated by intractable traffic problems.
He told The Courier: ”I don’t know whether this has been particularly well planned. I’m not a planner, but I need to be able to get to the station quickly.
”All the retained firemen work on a pager system, which generally sees us getting from work or home to the station and out in about five minutes.
”However, the other day it took me 12 minutes just to get from my house to the station.”
Temporary lights have appeared on South Street, the town’s main route to Kingsmuir, Letham and other villages, causing further delays at peak times.
Angus Council has announced it intends to close the street on December 12 for two weeks, which will route commuting traffic and emergency services through residential areas like Restenneth Drive.
The narrow road is usually reduced to a one-way street because of on-street parking, which is certain to cause problems for residents, commuters, and villagers coming in to town.
Mr King believes part of the problem is that many of Forfar’s firefighters live in the west end of the town, almost at the opposite end to the station in Strang Street.
”Getting by the Glamis Road into town and out the other side is normally just minutes, even if there’s reasonable traffic, but the West Port roadworks are causing weeks of problems.”
Mr King was keen to reassure local people the Forfar crew will always try their hardest to overcome the delays.
”We will always get to you, and try to shave off the extra minutes which might be involved.”
He added: ”I can foresee the work at South Street, when that becomes permanent, stopping us from turning up and into the station when we arrive and in the engine that will cause no end of trouble and we can only guess at possible delays then.”
Mr King said the Forfar crew had undertaken a simulation based on work at West Port, the new Asda store’s lights and junction, and South Street, and said it would take some time to plan the best routes.
”When you add in the uncertainty around peak fire times like teatime, with your kitchen fires and what have you, it’s puzzling to think of whether emergency services were thought of when they approved this work.
”When we are responding to a page, no one knows we are firefighters because they won’t give us lights. We could be sitting in a long tailback at the bottom of Strang Street and no one would think to let us in.”
An Angus Council spokesman said: ”All emergency services, including the fire services, are notified of all road closures as a matter of course.
”We met with local residents, shop owners and others on Monday this week and have been asked to defer the planned road resurfacing works which would involve the closure of South Street/Strang Street for two weeks from 12 to 23 December.
”We are currently considering options but have yet to come to a conclusion.”