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THE A83 has 11 different points along its route at risk of landslides a long-awaited report from Transport Scotland has shown.
Two of these at Glen Kinglas and Cairndow blocked the road in August 2004 so badly that they, along with the massive landslide on the A85 at Glen Ogle in the same month, prompted the commission of the Scottish Road Network Landslides Study. This massive and authoritative piece of research was published on Monday.
The study says 67 sections of roads in Scotland were shown to be at high risk; a total stretch of 240 miles on 16 roads across Scotland, just over 10 per cent of the Scottish trunk road and motorway network.
The A83, which carries upwards of 5,000 vehicles daily, manages to get nine of its locations in the top three categories of risk in this list.
But what the report does not say is when the temporary traffic lights on the Rest and be Thankful will be removed from Kintyre and Mid Argyll’s main road artery.
Alan Reid MP for Argyll and Bute said: ‘It is nearly a year since a landslide closed the A83 at the Rest and be Thankful and the so called ‘temporary’ traffic lights are still there. Now that this report has been published, the Scottish Government must act quickly to make our trunk roads safe.’
The report also believes that engineering works such as building retaining walls, are too expensive and intrusive. Instead there should be more done to improve the public’s awareness of the problem, including improved road signs, better weather forecasts and more road closures if the indications are that there is a risk.
Argyll and Bute Councillor Duncan MacIntyre, who is also chairman of Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership known as HITRANS, said engineering work has to be done to improve the roads that are most at risk.
He said: ‘The threat of landslides is a serious problem in both Argyll and the Highlands and it is a problem we need to deal with rather than put it off for another day.
