A Dundee businessman is furious that his business is to suffer for a second time because of a road closure.
Brian Hughes, who runs the Pine Cone Café at Templeton Woods said that the closure of the road leading to the café — which sits down from Birkhill Cemetery at Strathmartine — will have a devastating effect on his business.
He said: “This is the second time this summer the road has been closed. On both occasions Angus Council didn’t even bother to contact me directly to let me know what was to be happening.
“On each occasion I have only discovered that the road is to close when I have seen the sign at the top of the road.
Bitterly disappointing
“I think it is bitterly disappointing that the council haven’t even bothered to tell me personally.”
He said that on the previous occasion the road was closed, customer numbers and therefore his takings, were down by half.
He said: “People couldn’t get here so it obviously made a huge difference to my business.
“It was so bad I even had to send staff home because there was nothing for them to do — but obviously I still had to pay them.”
Lack of communication ‘beggars belief’
Brian said when he discovered the road was to be closed again he couldn’t believe it.
He said: “I spoke to the council about the harm the closure caused me first time around but that made no difference.
“No one listened to me. They just didn’t want to know and have done nothing to help.
“At a time when businesses are recovering from closures due to the pandemic I can’t believe they are behaving like this and my business is going to suffer again as a result.
“It beggars belief and I am extremely concerned about how my business will be affected yet again.”
Statutory powers
A spokeswoman for Angus Council said: “The work is being carried out by BT and it is normal for the utility asking for the closure to speak to those affected.
“Utilities such as BT have statutory powers to carry out works.
“Unfortunately we have no powers to refuse, just to coordinate roadworks.
“We did ask BT if the works could be carried out in one closure, not two and this was not possible.
“We have spoken with Mr Hughes and explained the situation to him and have asked BT to work closely with him to ensure as minimum disruption as possible.”
Disruption
An Openreach spokesman said: “We’re very conscious of the disruption caused by roadworks and always try to minimise this where possible.
“This work is needed to keep local people in service after a fault. Engineers were able to put in a temporary fix while we served statutory notice of underground works which would mean a road closure.
“New ducts were installed in June but further cabling work is now required and we’ve explained this to Mr Hughes.
“Our traffic management agency has confirmed signage will be clear that the Pine Cone Café is open for business as usual.
“We’ve asked our contractors to double check whether there’s any way to complete the work without a full road closure and, if not, if they can keep it as short as possible.”
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