Traders and the public have been expressing concern over the difficulty fire or ambulance vehicles would have accessing the station end of the precinct in an emergency because of the metal barricades erected to cordon-off the working area from pedestrians.

Matters were compounded last Wednesday when the farmers' market stalls were erected on the bridge beside the railed area leaving only a bottle neck for the public.

Traders' spokesman Ian Lavrie feared this set-up would be catastrophic in an emergency .

However, East Dunbartonshire Council has this week reiterated to the public their fears are groundless as emergency vehicles would be able to overcome the metal barricades.

Problems escalated on Monday morning when the entrance to the Way was blocked off before the diversion notices were erected and visitors had no idea where to go to access the walk.

As reported in last week's Herald, a temporary diversion will take walkers up Mugdock Road and left on to Ellangowan Road to access the Way,but no signs had been put up and walkers stood in the rain asking passers-by where they had to go.

Gilbert McVean, who operates the luggage transport service for walkers, realised when his bookings failed to turn up that something was amiss.
He had to hurriedly make up signs and have them laminated to let walkers know where to go.

A spokesman for the council said: "Failure to put up the signage was human error — instruction had been given, but not followed, however this has now been rectified. We apologise for any inconvenience caused in the short time between the diversion being put in place and the signs going up.

"Signage will be in place to alert walkers to this temporary diversion for the duration of the project.

"We continue to work in partnership with all those involved in the project to ensure that all industry health and safety standards, for those working on-site, for pedestrians and for access requirements, are followed closely for the duration of the works."

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