New equipment will help tackle potholes
Roads chiefs have new equipment in their fight against the pothole menace on Arran.
A £65,000 EuroPaver has been brought to Arran to help repair the island’s crumbling roads. It is able to hot mix a wide range of environmentally-friendly materials to produce a 1,000kg batch of material in under 15 minutes.
The mobile unit can also accept up to 100 per cent recycled asphalt without reducing the quality of the final product. And the ability to use hot asphalt means that repairs will be more robust than the cold tar which is being used to fill the majority of Arran’s potholes at present.
And there is more good news after island officer Gus MacLeod revealed to the Arran Community Council this week that he had secured additional funds of £40,000 to repair a number of areas of road surface.
That will see the imminent repair of three sections of road with serious potholes – two outside Brodick at Corriegills – and the main road in the centre of Whiting Bay which is badly rutted. Tenders for the work have already gone out, with the repairs requiring to be completed by the end of the financial year.
North Ayrshire Council set its budget on Wednesday, and Whiting Bay representative John Lamont said ahead of the meeting that the Arran councillors had to emphasise the need to divert resources from the mainland to help the island’s crumbling roads.
He said that while the arrival of the new machinery was welcome, the island needed six of them to make any real difference. But Mr MacLeod said he would not have the staff to operate them, were this the case. Chairman Bill Calderwood said it was good to have the equipment since it ‘improved the quality of the repair’.
Mr Lamont said some of the pothole damage around the island was on roads which had been resurfaced in the past year or two and asked if there was any comeback on the contractors. However, Mr McLeod considered this unlikely.
The meeting heard that both Arran NAC councillors Timothy Billings and Eileen McMaster had meet council officials to discuss the road conditions on the island and to press for additional funds. Mr MacLeod later told the
Banner that, following the budget, the council hoped to have money to carry out much of the pothole repair
work in May and June, before the main summer holiday season.
Meanwhile, drivers in Brodick can expect further disruption on the roads as scheduled works by various contractors are set to continue for another week.
During the past week, motorists have experienced traffic disruption near the main Co-op in Brodick while Scottish Water attended to repairs.
Council road repairs have also been taking place on the carriageway between Market Road junction and the Corriegills junction.
Medium impact works by Openreach, that were started last month, will continue to affect road users and in particular, parking provision along the stretch from Alma Road leading to near the Royal Bank of Scotland until Wednesday March 7.
High impact works affecting the stretch of road from the bridge near Brodick Golf Course, extending all the way to Brodick Primary School, will continue for six days until Thursday March 8.
In other major roadworks affecting Arran motorists, the resurfacing works on the A841 between Ballarie Bridge and North Sannox Bridge continues to close the Bogullie from 9.15am to 4.30pm daily until Friday March 23.