Councillor Dougie Philand was at the Scottish Parliament’s Pubic Petitions Committee yesterday where, amongst a series of petitions,the Argyll First group’s petition on the A83 – PE1428- was in another hearing.
The minutes of the meeting have now been published here online, as a downloadable pdf file.
Since these are the minutes relating to each of the petitions heard, below is an extract of the item relating to the A83 petition.
‘PE1428 by Councillor Douglas Philand, on behalf of Argyll First, on improvements for the A83. The Committee agreed to write to the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland.’
This means that the committee is putting positions to the Scottish Government and to Transport Scotland on which it is requiring their responses.
As before, Argyll First will have the chance to respond to the submissions the petitions committee receives from the the Scottish Government and from Transport Scotland.
These will be sent to Argyll First as they are received – and the committee will be writing to both shortly.
We understand that the Official Report (pretty well a verbatim transcript) of the meeting will be published online here on Monday 10th September; and the archived video of the meeting will shortly be published online here if you missed it live online.
The video archive of the Petitions Committee starts about 36 mins. in.
Two points I caught from this :
1 That funding was allocated 6 years ago for work on the ‘pinch points’ between Ardrishaig & Tarbert but has never been spent. (Jackson Carlaw) Why not?
2 According to the committee convenor (Dave Stewart) Argyll is classed as an island under EU rules. Does this not have some effect on funding in many areas?
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Absolutely – on both points.
And funding was also allocated 6 years ago for the accident black spot at The Erinnes on the untrunked section of he A83 between Kennacraig and Campbeltown. Six years ago was within the political authority of the current administration – Stewart Stevenson, one of the east coast in-crowd. was Transport Minister, Where did that money go?
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Just to clarify: the Erines ‘narrows’ are on the trunked section – between Ardrishaig & Tarbert, and became even more obviously inadequate after the landslide damaged stretches immediately to the north were rebuilt but the opportunity to ‘fix’ Erines was ducked.
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Newsroom: I would hope that John Finney still has that money earmarked for the A83 and I would agree with Robert’s clarification of the location of the Erines narrows.
In addition why (and when) was the Kennacraig/Campbeltown stretch ‘de-trunked’? We have a wind-tower production factory there and surely if even the Convenor of the Petitions Committee can see that the de-trunking was a mistake (my inference from what was said) then surely Transport Scotland should publish the criteria required for it’s re-instatement.
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If Argyll is classed as an island under EU rules then it should qualify for the Special Islands Needs Allowance (SINA).
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Prior to becoming an MSP Stewart Stevenson was employed by the Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh.
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Treble T “Prior to becoming an MSP Stewart Stevenson was employed by the Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh.”
????
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