TRUNK CALL AS ROAD IS CLOSED FOR REPAIRS

[Kintyre Forum News]

TRUNK CALL AS ROAD IS CLOSED FOR REPAIRS

Urgent calls are being made for the Scottish Executive to designate the increasingly busy A816 between Oban and Lochgilphead a trunk road.

Highlands and Islands MSP Dave Petrie claims that trunk road designation is the only way the crumbling road will get its fair share of money for repairs.

The Conservative MSP, who lives in Oban, made the plea after the road was put out of action on Friday and Sunday for the local council to carry out emergency temporary repairs at a collapsed section at Carnassarie.

However, traffic lights will remain at the site indefinitely as Argyll and Bute Council has decided not to spend £900,000 of its reserves carrying out permanent repairs to such a small stretch of the road.

Councillors believe an evaluation of the wider problems on the road, to be carried out by the Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (Hitrans), is the most appropriate course of action.

But Mr Petrie said: "I am putting out a plea for this route to be reinstated as a trunk road because we all know the state of Argyll and Bute Council's finances.

"I think it's very important that key roads like the Oban to Lochgilphead road, and even the full road down from Oban to Campbeltown, should be taken under the management of the trunk roads authority."

Councillor Alastair McKinley, chairman of the council's Mid Argyll, Kintyre and Islay area committee, said: "It would be a good idea if they would trunk the roads - it would be of benefit to us all."

Council leader Allan Macaskill agreed with Mr Petrie's suggestion.

The Lochgilphead to Kennacraig route was designated as a trunk road, said Mr Macaskill, because it led to the ferry port for Islay and linked in to another trunk road system which came in from Inveraray.

But Oban was a major ferry point, which, he claimed, should justify trunk road status for the road into town from Lochgilphead. Mr Macaskill said the council was planning to press the executive for trunk road status as soon as the Campbeltown to Ballycastle ferry plan went out to tender