Rest and Be Thankful: No landslide solution for 10 years, officials confirm

While Transport Scotland refused to put a timescale on the bid to fix the A83 at the Rest and be Thankful, The Herald has reported that officials confirmed work was not expected to start on the new route for at least another five years. It could then take another five years for the alternative to be built.

The situation has cause uproar, with motorists having already had to deal with decades of disruption over the important Highlands route.

It has come as some of those  present at meetings attended by Transport Secretary Michael Matheson have hit out at claims by both maintenance firm Bear Scotland and the Scottish Government that the situation is "unprecedented".

Issues with landslides at the spot were highlighted in the Scottish Road Network Landslides Study part authored by then Scottish Executive, 15 years ago.

The key transport artery in Argyll has been open for barely three weeks in nearly five months since a landslip brought about by rain blocked the road in early August. There has been no date given for its re-opening.

Instead, maintenance workers are seeking to spend £1 million on a barrier to protect the original alternative route, the single-track Old Military Road.  

That involves traffic being safely convoyed by an official vehicle on the single track road through Glen Croe. But even that has been frequently shut overnight because of fears that even it could be hit by landslides - leaving motorists with 60-mile detours. 

The A83 connects the Central Belt, via the A82 from Glasgow, to the Kintyre peninsula, all the way down to Campbeltown.

The Rest and Be Thankful is the highest point of a scenic ten mile route running from Tarbet to the A83's junction with the B828.

The words Rest and Be Thankful are inscribed on a stone near the junction, placed there by soldiers who built the original military road in 1753, now referred to as the Drovers' road.

The 2012 Scottish Road Network Landslides Study referred to instability, "including in the form of debris flows, in many areas underlain by schist" - a medium-grade metamorphic rock formed from mudstone or shale.

It said there was a need for landslide gates at locations where a physical closure may be deemed necessary, adding: "An obvious hazard area where such an approach would be appropriate is the A83 in the Rest and be Thankful area."

Seven years later Transport Scotland commissioned studies about permanent and short-term solutions about concerns over landslides on the road which had long since led to road closures.

One report co-authored by a landscape architect for Transport Scotland referred to the A83 at Rest and be Thankful as one of the "highest ranked sites" in the 2005 study.

Ministers have since been accused of wasting nearly £80m on more than a decade of failed solutions to the landslide issue after multiple slips exacerbated by heavy rainfall this year.

Some local residents have called for a public inquiry into the issue, demanding a permanent solution.

Iain Jurgensen, chairman of the Argyll and The Isles Tourism Co-operative (AITC) who attends the stakeholders' meetings, said a solution had always been available to re-route the road using an existing track which has not got the same slippage issues. He was also one of those alarmed at the timescales for dealing with the problems.

"It is not unprecedented, it was inevitable what happened here," said Jurgensen, who is also the managing director of Portavadie, the popular holiday resort overlooking Loch Fyne.

"What is happened is that we have waited for it to fall to bits, and now they want to take it up a gear. Now they are so frightened of something bad happening to somebody that their default position is don't open it because we cannot have someone being hit by a landslide and really getting hurt or killed.

"The rain isn't going to be turned off anytime ever in Scotland. We are in the position where the A83 looks extremely fragile to be open for any period of time, given what we have experienced in the past three months."

He and others confirmed that it would be take five years to secure land and deal with planning and consultation before any permanent solution can even be started.

"When they talked about five years there was a sharp intake of breath from those who were on the call," he said.

"So we are going to have seven days a week, 24 hours a day convoy system on the OMR, how much is that costing the taxpayer?"

In September, Transport Scotland published 11 options for a new route to replace the landslip-prone section of the A83 include building up to three bridges or tunnels. But the choice of solution is not expected till next year.

The new solutions being considered include building new fixed link crossings at Loch Long, Gare Loch and the Firth of Clyde, which also include building a new road in the glen behind the current route.

Others include new crossings from near West Kilbride, North Ayrshire, to Bute via Little Cumbrae, and further crossings either over the Firth of Clyde from Rothesay to Toward, or from Rhubodach to Colintraive.

Argyll and Bute Council have registered their concerns about the way the issues with the A83 have been handled.

An agreed message to ministers states: “The impact of decades of disruption at the main A83 is already severe enough.

“For the secondary diversion route to be similarly affected is utterly unacceptable to the remote, rural and islands communities of Argyll and Bute.

“At a time of unprecedented challenge, Argyll and Bute’s recovery, let alone its future, demands urgent action – now."

It too refers to a meeting of A83 stakeholders hearing that putting a permanent solution in place, once agreed, could require five or more years to secure the necessary permissions and wayleaves even before construction could start. Then, construction itself would take a number of years more.

“This effectively asks Argyll and Bute to sustain another decade of the kind of disruption experienced over the last few weeks. This, again, is unsustainable and unacceptable.

“[The council] agrees that the potential timescale of another decade before a permanent solution is in place is unacceptable, and that a sustainable interim solution must be identified and implemented urgently to support Argyll and Bute’s economic recovery and resilience and to prevent serious risks to its future success."

Commenting on the timescales involved, a Transport Scotland spokesperson said: "The current work to identify the preferred corridor is expected to be completed in spring 2021.  

"Following this, designs will be progressed, and as with other projects to improve the trunk road network, there will be a need to complete the necessary environmental assessments and statutory process to allow land to be acquired and the project constructed.

“We recognise that the timescales for developing an alternative to the current route and finding a long-term solution to the challenges created by the Rest and Be Thankful section of the A83 are frustrating for the local community and we will look to compress the programme where possible. However, it is important that the correct statutory process is followed to ensure a fair and transparent assessment of options and impacts on local communities and road users.

“We remain committed to progressing substantial shorter-term investment in the existing A83 in tandem with the work to identify a permanent solution as part of a two-phased approach and we will keep local communities and road users updated as the design work progresses.”