Scottish Water roadworks force shop and tearoom owner to close in Drumnadrochit – with threat to future of the Loch Ness side village's Post Office
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A Loch Ness-side shop and tearoom owner says his business has been “brought to its knees” by Scottish Water roadworks.
Robert Cockburn is also warning that Drumnadrochit could soon lose its only village post office.
Mr Cockburn (62), who has run the premises for 14 years, has been forced to temporarily close the premises and lay off two staff.
He blames the water supply agency’s lack of consultation and “couldn’t care less” approach to laying new water mains for hammering the business.
Mr Cockburn, who also sells tourist gifts and craft products, is heavily reliant on passing trade on the A82.
Roadworks with temporary lights from Drumnadrochit’s bridge to the tourist information centre car park have cut the store off from customers.
Mr Cockburn said: “It is fair to say the post office is on its knees. After two years of Covid, I’ve found myself with roadworks which hit us badly even before they reached us.
“People just want to get through or avoid them completely. It is a nightmare – it cuts us off from most of the village. I was forced to close on February 9. One of my staff has been made redundant and the other is on indefinite gardening leave.
“Scottish Water never even thought to speak to us to assess how they might lessen the impact.”
Scottish Water’s contractors offered to create parking spaces during the works but Mr Cockburn felt the measure wouldn’t help.
He is striving to ease the impact of closure on local customers by continuing to offer newspaper, milk and bakery deliveries. He added: “Winter in the Highlands is a nightmare for little village shops. We’re only here because of summer trade.
“For the last two years, we’ve not had that level of tourism. We were just about surviving until this. Could they not have given us another year to recover from Covid?
“I’ll see what the summer is like, but the post office could shut permanently.”
A Scottish Water spokeswoman said the work was essential to the village’s future expansion and stressed the firm had consulted locally and written to every home and business.
She said: “The project needs to be delivered now to enable the connection of new homes currently being built (and) anticipated development in coming years.
“We understand that use of traffic lights in the centre of a community is disruptive. We engaged with local community representatives and roads authorities and received clear feedback to avoid the busier tourist season.”
The spokeswoman said Mr Cockburn rejected the offer to change the works timetable to limit work outside his premises to two weeks. Current work is expected to last another three weeks.
