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Traffic lights fail again at busy Inverness roundabout

The Longman roundabout outside Inverness.
The Longman roundabout outside Inverness.

Controversial traffic lights at a busy Inverness roundabout have been out of operation for two days after suffering a power fault – and then being hit by a van.

The collision, involving one vehicle, happened about 24 hours after the lights at the Longman Roundabout failed on Sunday morning.

Lengthy queues could be seen as repairs were carried out between the off-peak times of 9.30am and 3.30pm, but motorists have said that traffic flow at peak times was better than usual.

Transport Scotland started trialling an alternative lights sequence at the end of the summer in response to concerns about traffic delays.

Recent figures from the trial showed an overall reduction in weekday journey times for drivers, with evening peak journey times cut by nine minutes, and morning commutes reduced by just more than a minute.

However there have been longer weekend waits of almost three minutes during the trial.

It is the second time the lights have failed this year after breaking down one morning in January.

Yesterday a Bear Scotland spokeswoman said: “We are working to carry out a full repair to the traffic signals at A9/A82 Longman Roundabout after they developed a power fault on Sunday morning and subsequent damage during a road traffic collision on Monday morning.

“The further damage meant that the original planned repair to the signals could not be undertaken on Monday.

“The full repair is expected to be completed tomorrow and the traffic signals reinstated as soon as it is safe to do so, with our teams continuing to monitor the area for any issues.”

Highlands and Islands (Labour) MSP David Stewart said: “It would be interesting to study whether journey times have improved during the outage. I was pleased that the changing of the sequence appeared to have journey time improvements but the longer term solution is a grade separated junction through the money from the City Deal.

“Clearly, it’s a roundabout of dissatisfaction with residents across the Highlands and the problems won’t go away with the growth of the population in Inverness and the Black Isle.”

An unnamed motorist travelling across the Kessock Bridge early yesterday morning said: “As somebody who commutes to Dingwall regularly for work, I found the journey a lot easier today. I had actually been running slightly late but being able to get through the Longman quickly meant I arrived at the usual time. It certainly makes a difference when the traffic is allowed to flow as normal.”

Other motorists wrote similar statements on social media. One man, Ray Shields, wrote: “The roundabout was working brilliantly coming off the bridge yesterday with the traffic lights out.”