A coach company owner whose buses bring pupils to Largs Academy from Skelmorlie and Fairlie has added his voice to the growing number of calls for major safety improvements to the A78.

Dick Plant, of Brisbane Road, Largs, says the road needs to be widened to make it safer, especially for large vehicles.

Mr Plant, who owns Barrhead-based DJ International Coaches, and drives one of the school buses himself, says the road gives no room to manoeuvre if something goes wrong, and he is urging Transport Scotland to act now to make the notorious coastal route safer.

The 67-year-old coach operator says he has had decades of experience driving buses on the A78, first with with SMT and, later, the Scottish Transport Group, and knows the road very well, and the risks it poses.

Mr Plant, who operates four coaches, bringing 135 pupils to Largs from the two villages, told the “News” : “The road is a concern from Forbes Place, just north of Wemyss Bay to (Fairlie) Southannan roundabout. Basically, it is too narrow and needs to be widened. For example, there are places in Fairlie, such as at the pedestrian crossing, where two large vehicles can’t pass each other.

“Our buses are eight feet wide and you have to allow another foot to allow for the offside mirror. There is simply just a lack of room for the amount of traffic the road carries — and it must be a nightmare for cyclists.

"At least in a vehicle you have the protection of the bodywork, but cyclists don’t have that. The road needs to be widened by three or four feet — that would give drivers a margin of error, which at the moment there is not a lot of.

“Hardly a week or a fortnight goes by without a car coming off the road.” Mr Plant says the railings on the seaward side of the road between Largs and Skelmorlie are inherently dangerous and act like spears if they are damaged. He wants them to be replaced with motorway-type barriers, but he says there is perhaps a technical reason why that type of barrier could not be used.

He added: “We have had one or two close calls on the road, but, touch wood, we have been OK. Our drivers have long years of experience of the road and we are very familiar with it. We know the timetables of the service buses so we can avoid them at places like the bend at Ashcraig.

"Some of coach tour drivers come down once in a blue moon and don’t know what room there is to manoeuvre and some car drivers leave a lot to be desired.” Mr Plant has been driving various types of large vehicle since he was 17. He was a driver-mechanic in the RAF and when based at RAF Cottesmore during the Cold War was used to driving vehicles that manoeuvred Vulcan bombers loaded with nuclear arms. He started driving services buses when the left the RAF in 1968 and later formed his own company.

Mr Plant attended a recent meeting of Largs Community Council at which representatives of Transport Scotland and TranServ answered questions from councillors and members of the public in relation to the road.

He told the meeting that during all the years he had been driving the road he had never seen any improvements to its layout, despite vast improvements in places such as Irvine and Ardrossan which now had by-passes.

The transport representatives gave no indications that major work was scheduled for the road in the near future but said they would check accident statistics with the police on an on-going basis. They took away a list of questions compiled by community councillor Ian Murdoch and promised to provide responses in due course.

The road between Largs and Skelmorlie was closed for 24 hours when huge waves damaged the carriageway during recent storms.