A Speyside hotel has questioned “long overdue” road repairs at a popular tourist spot.
Scottish Water engineers were due to begin repair work on a collapsed manhole cover on Aberlour High Street last night.
The problem was detected on Monday but bosses at the nearby Aberlour Hotel said they had been complaining about the noise from the faulty cover for more than a month.
Staff said the loud rattling caused by drivers passing over the loose chunk of metal had been ruining guests’ stays and left it with critical reviews from customers.
A spokesman for the hotel, which is next to the main road through the town, said: “We complained at least a month or two back about it, so while we welcome the repairs we think the work is long overdue.
“It rattled so loudly you could hear it from the back room of the hotel, and it disturbed our guests’ sleep.
“Around a dozen people complained to us about the noise, and we’ve received messages about it on the Trip Advisor website.”
The man said he contacted Bear Scotland on a number of occasions to highlight the need for repairs.
However, last night a spokeswoman for the trunk road operators maintained the fault was only discovered during a routine check.
She said: “We reported the manhole to Scottish Water last Wednesday after the defect was noted during a route inspection.
“Whilst we monitored the defect for any signs of deterioration the programming of repair was the responsibility of Scottish Water.”
Scottish Water said it was only informed of the problem last week.
A spokeswoman said: “We were made aware of the loose manhole cover last Thursday, and arranged for a contractor to carry out a repair shortly thereafter.
“Given the fact that the cover collapsed on Monday, the timescale of the repair was brought forward.”
The road was expected to reopen at 2am this morning.
The Scottish Water spokeswoman added: “We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this vital repair work caused.
“Our contractor also repaired a further two loose covers on the same stretch of carriageway to minimise the need to revisit the same area and put traffic management in place again in the near future.”