Dear Mr Yousaf
Our reason for contacting you is to invite you to come to beautiful Argyll. Or, more precisely, the Rest and be Thankful.
Whether due to climate change or not, a series of significant landslips – or debris flows, to be accurate – have led to closures of the vital A83 trunk road at ‘the Rest’, effectively cutting off a large chunk of Argyll. Detours are available but these are lengthy, costly and time-consuming for business and private road users. The most recent significant slip onto the A83 at the Rest caused a car being driven by a female motorist to be forced across the carriageway, and she was fortunate not to be pushed over into the steep sides of Glen Croe below the road.
Arguably one of the most significant impacts of all this is a corrosive effect on the reputation of the region and the reliability of its roads – ie, ‘can we rely on getting there and back safely and costeffectively?’.
Transport Scotland has taken mitigating steps to ameliorate the effects of debris flows, but these are far from the longterm solution.
In fact, the measures being taken are based on the cheapest of a number of options drawn up by the Jacobs consultancy a few years back. Our newspapers are running a positive campaign to ‘Invest in the Rest’ at the moment, pressing for significant investment, from any source, in a longterm solution.
We believe the people of Argyll and Bute deserve the same level of infrastructure investment as seen in other parts of the country, notably in the east of Scotland. We would welcome a visit by you, in the near future, to see at first hand the various areas affected, and to meet with and hear the genuine concerns of local residents and business managers on the situation.
We look forward to your reply and hope we can organise a visit before too long.
Argyllshire Advertiser and Campbeltown Courier.