At the meeting of Nairn West Community Council last Tuesday night in the Academy, the Secretary Brian Stewart told his colleagues that Transport Scotland had agreed to have a consultative meeting with the members of the Community Councils to discuss “what to do about the Traffic Lights”. The consultative meeting was to take place the next day Wednesday 28th of October. No word of what happened at that meeting has yet entered the public domain - did Transport Scotland respond to local concerns? Perhaps we will find out soon.
Sadly the next day (Thursday 29th) there was a tragic accident at the pedestrian crossing on the Academy Street section of the A96. The road was closed for several hours as police investigated the scene and traffic was diverted via Marine Road and the West End.
The subject of traffic through the town also came up during discussion on Tuesday night when the effect of traffic displacement of the 18-tonne limit due to be imposed on the White Bridge at Cawdor was aired:
Brian said: “they had traffic counters and they have produced stats on the likely volume of heavy traffic that is going to be diverted through Nairn when the restrictions come in”
He went on to say that the information suggested that there was going to be somewhere between 50 and 80 additional heavy vehicles per day coming through Nairn that currently use the White Bridge route. He continued: “there’s nothing we can do about that but the reason it is on here is that this isn’t only Cawdor’s problem [...] We will be faced with an additional volume of heavy trucks, buses and the rest.”
Highland Councillor Michael Green later added that buses would not be affected as they come under the 18-tonne limit, he went on to say that the very best case scenario for the completion of the White Bridge was two and a half years.
Brian Stewart also suggested that other traffic over and above heavy vehicles would perhaps come through Nairn due to delays caused during construction of a replacement White Bridge.
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| The accident scene on Thursday afternoon in which one elderly pedestrian died and another was seriously injured. |