A7066

The A7066 is a small part of the Edinburgh to Glasgow Road, built between 1924 and 1932. Although only two and a half miles long, it's still a very interesting piece of road, including the first dual-carriageway built on the route east of Newhouse, and one of the earliest grade-separated junctions anywhere in Scotland! It also passes through quite interesting countryside, with visible remains of three different generations of industries, all abandoned during the 20th century.

A bridge on the A7066 near Bathgate, wide enough to take a dual carriageway

Like much of the rest of the former Edinburgh-Glasgow Road, the A7066 is mainly a 10m wide two-lane single-carriageway road, and is likely to have been marked as three-lanes for a time. It was originally built as the new line of the A8, and gained that number in c1933. However, with the coming of the motorway to the south, the road's importance was reduced and so it was renumbered as the A7066, although this did at least give it the distinction of being the only 4 digit A road in Zone 7 for many years. The number comes from the nearby B7066

The wide single carriageway is set into an alignment that is considerably wider than the road itself. The single-carriageway sections of the A7066 all have a broad grass strip running along one side, which was intended from the outset to carry a second carriageway. All the engineering work was completed to dual-carriageway width, only the road surface and edge stones were left unfinished on the second carriageway. On bridge decks, the second carriageway was built, and the mossy remains give an indication of the true age of the road. What's most unusual about the A7066 is that for roughly a mile, the second carriageway was actually completed, although at a later date than the original road. The junction with the B792 was also upgraded, from a flat crossroads to a motorway-style grade-separated intersection, in 1962 as part of the construction of the adjacent Leyland Truck factory at Bathgate. This was, however, long before it had been decided to build the M8 motorway on a new line to the south.

The road's surface had suffered badly over the years, and had seen little major improvement, certainly since the 1960s, and possibly even since it was first built in the 1920s. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the road had started to break up badly with winter frosts, and repairs were at best, temporary fills for the potholes, with tar and chippings applied overall to disguise the real state of the road underneath. However, further work has since been carried out to remedy these issues.

Route

A sign for the B792 on the A7066 - the grade-separated junction is an historical relic of the road's time as the A8

The route starts at the Boghead Roundabout on the A801 to the south west of Bathgate, and heads north east. At one time this roundabout had the curious distinction of being the end points of the B7066 opposite the A7066 and the B7002 opposite the A7002, all a result of lazy renumbering following the construction of the motorway to the south. Bathgate has grown considerably over the years, and there are now industrial estates, business parks and housing estates on either side of the road, largely screened by trees at first. A left turn leads into a housing estate, and then two roundabouts follow in quick succession, giving access to more residential developments. Both of these roundabouts have been added since 2005. Mosside Farm used to stand near here, set back in its own lands. In the days when the BMC Works produced some of the best tractors in Britain, Mosside Farm was the training establishment, where salespeople and prospective purchasers could come to learn the capabilities of their new steeds in a genuine farm environment. All of the early BMC publicity photos for Bathgate-built tractors were taken at Mosside Farm.

Just after the second roundabout, the route widens out to be a dual carriageway, this section built in c1962 as part of the Leyland factory development. The factory has long since been replaced by housing, but extensive business parks lie to the south of the A7066 here, so the grade separated junction for the B792 is still busy. Shortly after the last slip road merges in, the dual carriageway is interrupted by another modern roundabout, Inchwood Roundabout, giving access to The Pyramids Business Park. The dual carriageway comes to an end soon after, with the A7066 following Starlaw Road north east on a long, wide straight alignment over the railway. The next junction, Boghall Roundabout, is the end of the route. This is part of the Starlaw Interchange, J3A on the M8, a new junction built in the late 1980s to improve access to Bathgate and Livingston.