Campaigners from Dumfries and Galloway have reached over 800 signatures on a Scottish Parliament petition demanding the A75 to be upgraded to a dual carriageway. The A75 is over 90 miles long between Gretna and Stranraer and plays an important role as a euro route in terms of trade, tourism and business for the area.
Three teenagers launched the ‘Dual The A75’ Facebook page back in February with the goal of gathering support and momentum for such an upgrade to take place. The page has over 3000 followers and is managed by eight individuals.
One of the campaign founders Danny Pool said “The amount of support the campaign has seen has been fantastic. Our petition has only been online for just under 3 weeks now and has already seen over 800 people sign for the road to be dualled. We have had people from all across the UK and Ireland sign our petition, which just shows that this road affects many road users, not necessarily just those who live in Dumfries and Galloway.”
A Transport Summit is scheduled to take place this year for Dumfriesshire which will be
chaired by Deputy First Minister John Swinney. Also in attendance will be Scotland’s new Transport Minister Humza Yousaf as well as respectable MSP’s in the constituency. The Transport Summit will hopefully outline further developments and improvements the Government is able to make to transport in the region. The Dual The A75 team hope they will be invited along to the summit so they can share their concerns and ambitions about dualling the entire road.
Whilst the Transport Summit is being scheduled, the team are still looking for more signatures on the Scottish Parliament petition. Danny added “the more signatures we can gather the better. This is such a great opportunity to show those in parliament how much demand there is for further improvements to be made on the route. I feel the benefits are massive in terms of safety, trade and business which would help our local economy here in Dumfries and Galloway grow.”
You can view the campaign Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/A75RoadUpgrade/?fref=ts
You can sign the petition here: https://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Pe
titions/A75RoadUpgrade
