TRANSPORT Northern Ireland has been forced to apologise after melting tar caused major problems for motorists on the Boa Island Road last week.

The hot weather is being blamed but motorist John Ritchie, whose motorhome was damaged by the tar last Wednesday, believes the road should have been closed to protect drivers.

“It was terrible, you could hardly drive,” Mr. Ritchie told The Impartial Reporter. “There was a noise of the stones whacking around the mud guards. I didn’t pull over at first because there were about 10 cars in front of me and a pile behind me. I kept driving slowly. It was a real disaster altogether.” He said he then had to pull over “when the brakes were giving a wee bit of trouble.” “There were stones in the discs, but I knew it wouldn’t do any harm so I drove on home. The tar was over the four wheels; it filled one of the coil springs at the front, and was stuck along the chassis, every place, and down the sides,” he said.

Transport Northern Ireland had been carrying out a £35,000 surface dressing improvement scheme on the road but the warm weather proved problematic.

Mr. Ritchie, a former chief engineer in Unipork, Enniskillen, said: “That road should have been closed. I contacted them [Transport Northern Ireland] but I couldn’t tell anybody what had happened because I couldn’t get the right person. They took my number and said they would ring me back but they didn’t. I rang them again and got talking to someone and he was very apologetic but that wasn’t much good to me.

“I asked them to come out and take a look at the tarmac but they said they’d take my word for it. I told them I had plenty of samples here if they wanted some,” said Mr. Ritchie, who spent several hours scraping the tar off his wheels.

A spokesman for Transport Northern Ireland has told The Impartial Reporter that the works on the Boa Island Road “were well signposted.” “Due to unusually warm weather, the top surface on one section of road took longer to set than anticipated. Transport Northern Ireland became aware of the issue later in the day and immediately took remedial action to rectify the problem. Unfortunately some drivers did experienced difficulties. The Department apologises for any inconvenience and the matter is being investigated.”