Open letter to Minister for Transport Fiona hyslop
Dear Ms Hyslop,
Rest and Be Thankful – A new low for Transport Scotland
We are concerned that the proposed scheme to improve the A83 through the Rest and Be Thankful is inappropriate and far too expensive.
On June 2, 2023, Transport for Scotland announced its intention to proceed with a £433million upgrade to provide a 1.3km long concrete shelter over the existing road, to protect it from increasingly frequent landslips.
How can it cost that much and why did it take a decade and after so much wasted money for Transport Scotland to come up with a plan? Roads throughout the French and Italian Alps are strewn with these concrete shelters.
This decision was made three days after the issue of the 437-page, stage-two report, which provided five different route options.
The chosen ‘Brown Route Option’ was shown to be the cheapest, but with some ridiculous alternatives costing twice as much.
One alternative that appealed to many at the outset is the ‘Green Route Option’ that runs through publicly-owned Forestry and Land Scotland land on the opposite west side of the glen, where an existing heavy haulage route mirrors the A83.
This route was commended in a public report on July 23 2021 by two past presidents of the Geological Society of Glasgow, issued prior to the stage two detailed design.
They highlighted the geological stability provided by the shallower slope on the west side of the glen and the existing mature forest.
One might expect this to be a cost effective alternative, however, by the time Transport Scotland consultants had come up with a proposal and priced it, the specification required a 3.3km long debris flow shelter for the west side (2.5 times the length of the debris flow shelter specified for the landslip prone east side), sandwiched between two unnecessary viaducts with a combined length of 735m. This gave the 4.2km ‘Green Route Option’ an estimated cost of £877m.
Transport Scotland has an extremely poor reputation at delivering major construction projects and seem to over specify work resulting in flabbergasting price levels.
We have read that Britain spends three times what they do in Continental Europe to build major infrastructure projects.
Reading of England’s HS2 railway, our A9, ferry replacements and the Corran crossing I can quite believe it.
However, resolving the Rest and be Thankful landslide issue seems to be quite beyond the capability of Transport Scotland. Let’s get some Alpine road engineers in.
Kenneth Morris MSc BEng, Civil Engineer, Fort William; Charles Struthers, managing director (retired), J&A Gardner Construction Ltd, Oban
Marie Curie festive season support
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