Stevenson replies to McGrigor on A83

Jamie McGrigor, Highlands and Islands MSP, has had a reply from Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson to his expression of concern and request for information on Argylls arterial trunk road, the A83. The Minister wrote:

‘Thank you for your email of 9 September about the recent landslide on the A83 trunk road at the Rest and Be Thankful.

‘Transport Scotland appreciates the importance of the A83 route and understands the inconvenience caused by diversions. Our response to the recent landslide was swift and we appreciate the patience shown by the local communities while the road was made safe and brought back to normal operations within 48 hours.

‘The site of the landslide is complex in engineering terms and our key priority is the safety of road users. An improvement scheme is planned for next year and this is being reassessed following the recent landslide. The work will involve building a new culvert under the road; strengthening the embankment below the road and installing new drainage above and below the road. Construction is planned for early Spring 2010, pending completion of statutory procedures.’

This response raises more questions than it answers.

The first one is why this construction work was  not done following the previous landside two years ago?

The second question is one to which Mr Stevenson makes  no reference yet it was an issue to which Jamie McGrigor paid specifc and graphic attention.

McGrigor told the Minister that he had talked to a lorry driver who experiences regular anxiety when he is held by a red traffic light at the entrance to the reduced-width, one-way section of the A83 where this sequence of landslips in 2007 and 2009 have  occurred.

Transport Scotland have identified a long section of the A83 which is constantly at risk from landslips in sustained heavy rain. The site affected by serial landslips lies roughly in the centre of this section which runs from Ardgartan on Loch Long over Rest and Be Thankful to Butter Bridge in Glen Croe.

Setting aside the fact that the selected section of the A83 foreshortens the area actually at risk, as we have pointed out before, there can be no  doubt that the delay to repairing the affected section since the October 200y incident at the same spot has created the risk feared by the lorry driven to whom Jamie McGrigor has spoken.

The driver remains afraid that, while he cannot move, stopped in traffic at the red light, he is utterly vulnerable to any landslide that comes down the hill.

The A83 carries steady traffic into and out of Argyll. Traffic on the way in and held at the control lights at the southeastern end of the affected road section can build up ito a sizeable queue.

In conditions where a potential landslip is identified by equipment now installed, the current solution is to switch to red the traffic lights at both ends of the dangerous section, keeping vehicles away from the most dangerous area.

However, stopped and queing traffic is a sitting duck for potential landslides further down the hill where they occurred a couple of years before the October 2007 incident, closing the road at that time.

In the absence of traffic coming down the hill – which would be the case with both traffic flows stopped by red lights in emergency situations, cars in a queue could do three point turns in the road and go south to get out of the risk area. Large vehicles would be unlikely to have the room to perform such a manoevre.

So, until and probably after the repairs are complete there remain very real risks to drivers on the A83 from Ardgartan to Rest and Be Thankful. It would be interesting to hear the Minister’s thoughts on this.

The audience taking advantage of the sixty minutes worth of National Conversation in Oban’s Corran Halls on Monday evening from 7.00pm – 8.00pm will have a chance to enquire on this as Stewart Stevenson, with Community Safety Minister, Fergus Ewing, will be taking part.