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Published
The A83 Rest and Be Thankful in Argyll has reopened with a diversion after heavy rainfall overnight triggered a 500-tonne landslide.
Bear Scotland confirmed an assessment by geotechnical engineers found the debris had been intercepted by fences and pits.
But as a safety precaution, traffic has been moved to the diversion route via the Old Military Road.
It is expected the route will be used through to Tuesday when a decision will be made on the full reopening the A83, according to BBC Scotland.
Eddie Ross, Bear Scotland project manager, said the alarm was raised after discoloured water and debris were spotted coming down a hillside channel at 07:30.
The A83 was immediately closed as a safety precaution.
He said: “The debris fences and pit have retained all of the debris from what was a considerable landslide event.
“They have protected road users and protected the road itself from damage and will greatly speed up the clear-up operation.”
Mr Ross said the use of the Old Military Road had minimised the need for the longer diversion route and advised road users to expect delays of around 20 minutes.
He added: “We will review the situation over the course of the next few days to ensure it is safe to reopen the A83 fully, under traffic signal control.”
Transport Scotland announced last June that a mile-long tunnel costing £470m is to be built to protect vehicles from landslips on the A83.
The 100-mile stretch of road, which connects the Mull of Kintyre and southern Argyll to the shores of Loch Lomond, has regularly been closed by falling rocks and debris in recent years.
Last October seven landslips led to 9,500 tonnes of debris crashing onto the road.
The closures can leave motorists facing long detours while the route is cleared.
Eddie Ross, Bear Scotland project manager, said: “The on-site traffic management team swiftly alerted of discoloured water and debris coming down a hillside channel at 07:30 this morning and the A83 was immediately closed as a safety precaution.
“The prompt mobilisation of the Old Military Road has minimised the use of the longer diversion route and ensured that Argyll and Bute remains open for business.”
So why has so much money been spent this last decade fruitlessly trying to arrest landslides.
The costs of protection works, the upgrade of the military road, the costs of the repeated clearance of landslides, has been absolutely huge. Ten years at let us say £8 to £10 million a year is the best part of £100m. And then there is the cost of economic disruption, closed road, one hundred mile detours.
What country in the world would allow this on one of their main national arterial routes. Dead money, squandered whilst the road blocks time and time and tine again.
And now they say they may build a tunnel at a cost of nearly half a billion pounds. Don’t think that is going to happen any time soon. But why a tunnel?
Story is that Transport Scotland had highly developed proposals to run a new road over the land behind Glen Croe thereby avoiding a road in a gen subject to landslides. Seven slips last year with circa 9,500 tonnes of debris is a horror story and already this week another slip and 500 tonnes and the winter hasn’t even started.
So what happened to the road proposal. Anecdotal comment is that vested land interests did not want their land interfered with. Better that it is used by the very few for shooting than essential transport links for the many. It’s certainly an interesting question. Why no new road. I mean a ten mile road was built through Glen Douglas just to haul military shipments of weapons to and from Coulport – so what binned the new road proposal to avoid Glen Croe. The money that has been spent plus economic loss these last ten years would have paid for the road.
But maybe these are the questions our politicians would prefer us not to ask. Mushrooms feeding in the dark is an old adage. But could it be true.
Maybe someone could ask the question as to what happened to the new road proposal and why?