A953

The A953 Quayside runs past Banff Harbour

If there was ever a prize for the most pointless A road, the A953 would be high up on the list. It is a brief extension along Banff Quayside of the A97.

At the northern edge of Banff, by the site of the long-gone railway station, a right turn off the northern, and final, section of the A97 marks the start of the A953, which loops around from north to south under the name Quayside. At the south end of the harbour Quayside becomes Harbour Place, an unclassified road heading towards the B9142. The whole route is less than a fifth of a mile long and could just as easily have been made a part of the A97.

Few maps, other than the Ordnance Survey, mark the route as an A-road at all. In addition, a look on GSV suggests that neither the A953 nor the extension of the A97 north of the A98 are signed. Nevertheless, it remains listed by Aberdeenshire Council as still following its 1922 itinerary, so must serve some purpose! The 1922 lists show a number of A-roads whose sole reason for existence appears to be to provide docks with an A-road connection, demonstrating that sea transport was far important then than it is now. The continued Class I status of the A953 is, however, unusual.

An OpenStreetMap trace for this route awaits uploading to the SABRE Wiki.