£30,000 repairs to A7 at Hawick to be finished by end of March, drivers promised

The work opposite Havelock Road is said to be ready to go ahead once BT has completed repairs to manhole covers there.

Hawick and Hermitage councillor Davie Paterson, a member of the A7 Action Group, has taken up the matter with Amey, the company in charge of maintaining trunk roads in south-east Scotland, on behalf of residents unhappy about delays to the work.

A spokesperson for the firm said: “Amey has a planned patching scheme proposed for this section of the A7.

“We are waiting for BT to complete repairs to and replacement of some of their manholes at this location to allow this patching work to commence.

“As the repair work to the manholes is being undertaken by another organisation, we cannot give an exact date when this patching will take place, but we anticipate the works to be completed before the end of March, at the latest.”

In a letter to Mr Paterson, Garry Head, an area manager with Amey, says design proposals for the work have been submitted to Transport Scotland.

He added: “Schemes of this size and budget involve rather bureaucratic processes to ensure value for money is being met.

“This is why we are keen to ensure all the ironwork is sound and at the required level to ensure the standard of resurfacing is not compromised.

“We hope this will be resolved shortly but unfortunately cannot control BT’s timescales.

“Once we have funding in place for the works and the BT manholes are reset, we will programme the works.

“I appreciate the matter may be frustrating to local residents, but we would rather proceed with the preferred long-term solution rather than carrying out a large number of cheaper, smaller, table-top sized patches over the worst areas, which would create many joints and ultimately lead to a section of road with poor ride quality.”