Council wins timber transport roads funding
Argyll and Bute Council has again made a successful application for funding to upgrade roads used for timber extraction, this year receiving £1.227 million from the Scottish Timber Transport Scheme (STTS).
Funding from the STTS has been used to complement the investment made by Argyll and Bute Council for roads surfacing and reconstruction over the last few years.
The local authority’s environment, development and infrastructure committee last week also heard that capital works for roads reconstruction and footway schemes for 2020/21 have been revised as a result of delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
No surface dressing work will be carried out this year. This is normally done over the summer when warmer temperatures soften the underlying road material allowing stone chips to become bedded in.
Instead the revised programme will include a mix of traditional resurfacing, surface dressing preparatory works and in situ recycling, involving breaking up the old road surface and adding other materials so that the road can be re-laid. This method is particularly suitable for roadworks on islands as it requires transporting fewer materials and is less reliant on ferries, is more environmentally friendly and provides best value.
The surface dressing programme will carry forward into the next financial year.
Councillor Robin Currie, policy lead for housing, roads and infrastructure services, said: ‘During the Covid-19 pandemic we had to change the way we worked and it wasn’t possible to focus on the large-scale road programmes we’d originally planned. We are now in the position to start work again, and despite the lateness in the year, can still deliver a substantial amount of the planned work.
‘The funding from the STTS is a welcome addition to our investment in roads capital works, which in recent years has made an improvement in our network. At the same time, we continue to invest in day-to-day maintenance work like patching and filling potholes.’