This afternoon has been a game of two halves.
On one hand there has been a team of Scotland Transerv engineers and road workers who have done a superb job to free the hostage to the A83 that is Argyll.
This achievement has been astonishing in the time, with so much against them. They deserve all possible credit we can together give them – and their information flow on the situation has been first class. (There is the matter of the predictable redundancy of the Traffic Scotland website but that is not their responsibility.)
They were visited, as we reported they would be, by Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment, Alex Neil MSP.
Unfortunately the politician could not rise to the occasion of need as the men kn the hill had done.
Mr Neil visited the site of the landslip. He also met local business owners, community representatives and councillors to discuss what more can be done to reduce the risk of disruption in future and to update them on plans for an emergency route.
After all of this, the government reported that Mr Neill confirmed that a task force will be set up immediately to oversee progress. The task force will include representatives from all of the key players involved and be chaired by the Transport Minister and will meet on August 15th.
The Minister said: ‘The Scottish Government and Transport Scotland remain determined to deliver an emergency alternative to this lifeline route which serves communities throughout Argyll. We are also developing measures to make the main route safer and less exposed to landslides in future.
‘I fully appreciate their frustration at the ongoing disruption to the local economy, especially at such an important time of the tourist season. We have already allocated significant funding to tackle the problem and, weather permitting, and if we can finalise a deal with private landowners, work will get underway on the emergency route in the coming weeks. And at around the same time, we will extend the length of debris flow netting on the hillside, which will also result in a lifting of the current traffic restrictions.‘
Action?
First of all – what exactly is the story here?
We were told that Transport Scotland had come to a decision and that work is starting this month on an emergency diversion of varying descriptions in Glen Croe – to be completed and ready for use by November.
Mr Neil does not seem precisely to have underwritten that information
The Minister’s responses here were action-lite, foregrounding the formation of task force ‘to oversee progress’ with no unequivocal sense of what that ‘progress’ will involve, except a move towards an emergency diversion route.
Other than this, there were only vague mumblings: ‘We are also developing measures to make the main route safer and less exposed to landslides in future.’
This does not mean a permanent solution or the Minister would have said so clearly. When there is popular credit to be had, no politician undersells a score. This need mean no more than additional debris flow netting.
This is yet another line of decoy ducks they think will deceive slomo Argyll. They will be surprised.
Part of what we do involves being aware of the temperature and the pulse of a place on specific issues. Politicians do not live with the soles of their feet receptive to the vibrations of the ground around them – a metaphor close to the problem on the A83.
If they do not understand the need for real action to secure this vital road properly, the initiative may pass from them.
The business community – the tourism sector and the road transport sector – really have had it with the havering. They live with the cost of this and they are neither stupid nor passive.
The very first published photo of this latest incident made the slide look like a flow of porridge or wet concrete; subsequent photos appear to show that excavation has exposed a great deal of heavier rock inside the flow, but the question has to be asked whether debris flow netting would have arrested the ‘porridge’ – or just the rocks?
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An interesting question.
A material point here is that the first photo showed rthe results of the first landslip – after which substantially more rocks, mud and slurry came off the hill – shown in the latest photographs.
We do know and have reported that the force of the slip just swept the previous concrete barrier off the road and away down the hill somewhere.
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wakeham: is this another of your posts on a subject about which you have neither knowledge or experience.
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How about constructive comment?
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I think it is extremely constructive to point out to readers when somebody posts on every topic under the sun that the person posting may have no direct experience of the subjects, no qualifications in the topics and no direct knowledge of what is happening.
On the subject of ferries to Dunoon your posted repeatedly. Eventually it was revealed you did not know how a pontoon worked ( you did not realised the freeboard of the vessels was important to the design). It was then further revealed that you did not know passengers disembarked on the level to linkspans at both Dunoon and Gourock and had been doing so for the last year.
To be fair to you you did say you did not use the service, but then why on earth did you post so much on a topic about which you knew nothing?
So, take a tip, post on subjects which you do know something about, that way your posts may be viewed as constructive rather than guff.
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I really don’t like being misrepresented by you, Ferryman – you seem to be assuming I commented on the freeboard when I never have, I’ve been saying that pontoons are designed for easy access to boats, and would be a great improvement on the sort of gangways that were used for passengers to access the streakers. Their replacements are using the vehicle linkspans – one of which seems to have recently required repair, and neither of which was designed for passenger use. The linkspan at Gourock is too far from the trains for long-term use. Even a numbskull knows that it goes without saying that the boat and the pontoons would have to be compatible. Maybe you assume that I’ve being suggesting pontoons for the two boats you refer to as ‘bathtubs’; I haven’t, and these two boats are of different designs. If this is why you’ve been rubbishing the idea of using pontoons, you really aren’t very bright. You are, however, vindictive – perhaps to cover your own ignorance, your clear intolerance of the comments of an ‘outsider’, and the arrogance that seems to go with your chosen name. If you choose only to comment on ferries – or on the A83 if you can steer the discussion in that direction – that’s up to you, but please don’t criticise me or anyone else for commenting on anything they wish to. You might consider emigration to North Korea, where there are probably some suitably clapped-out ferries to occupy your mind, and where the intellectual climate might be to your liking.
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Wakeham: you wrote just wrote “Even a numbskull knows that it goes without saying that the boat and the pontoons would have to be compatible”.
So look back at your previous posts on how pontoons were independent of the boats using them, then don the dunces cap, retire quietly and shut up unless you have direct experience, qualifications or knowledge about what you are posting about.
You post on almost every topic that appears on this blog, so you know it all?
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What are you on about, Ferryman? – you’re not making a lot of sense.
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I thought porridge fixed everything. Maybe we should patch the mountainside with porridge.
Well done chaps btw
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I can think of a (presumed) human being I’d like to fix with porridge; if there was plenty of brown sugar, and maybe raisins, sultanas, or stuff like that – together with milk if still available – it wouldn’t be cruel, would it?
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It’s either that or let the RAF have some practice with their rockets on the hill…. perhaps that might remove all the boulders – assuming that they can aim correctly….
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