THOUSANDS of drivers are facing a 100-mile diversion this week thanks to a set of overnight roadworks.
Motorists will be forced to go two and a half hours out of their way just to skirt around a 30-mile closure.
Locals have claimed that the shutdown is “causing havoc” by flooding nearby routes with traffic usually carried by a major A-road.
Highway bosses have been closing sections of the A75 in Southern Scotland this week for “carriageway patching” and “resurfacing” work.
The stretch of the road between Castle Douglas and Newton Stewart will again be closed overnight from 8pm this evening.
Around 30 miles separate the towns, but the official diversion is closer to 100 miles long.
Drivers will be funnelled onto the A713 and drive all the way up to Ayr, almost 50 miles north of Castle Douglas, before turning back along the A77.
They will then drive back another 50 miles or so to get around the closure.
As a result, the usually 40-minute drive is now expected to take as much as two hours longer to complete.
Locals have claimed that the blockage has led to a surge in traffic in rural Ayrshire, including lorries bound for the Cairnryan ferry passing through small villages.
Liz Hitschmann, who lives in Gatehouse-of-Fleet, told the BBC: “On the first night that the closure happened, there were no diversion signs in place, so the lorries were queued up all the way from Auchenlarie right the way back to Gatehouse which is some two to three miles.
“And then because the lorries didn’t know where to go they were coming through Gatehouse, which is not really made for lorry traffic, and that in itself caused a lot of problems.
“The fact that they weren’t notified and the signage wasn’t ready, and even now the signage is very small and totally inadequate.”
She slammed the long diversion as “totally unnecessary” and called on officials to use a convoy system instead.
But a spokesperson for Amey, the firm that maintains the road on behalf of Transport Scotland, said the shutdown was needed to address issues with the road surface.
They added that there had been “extensive discussions” with residents, ferry operators and the haulage industry, which had seen the diversion agreed in advance.
And they insisted that workers made “every attempt” to reduce disruption, including working overnight, as they complete the £700,000 project.
