Why we doggedly report the problems on A83

SOMETIMES in newspapers, you come across something that appears at first glance to be totally innocuous but turns out to be anything but.

This is certainly the case with the ongoing saga of the Rest and be Thankful, the stretch of the

A83 that links Loch Lomond and Loch Fyne.

It is a very picturesque road but is also a vital trunk route for the thousands of people who live in the communities south of Cairndow who rely on it every day for business.

Over the past decade, the road has also become notorious for regularly being closed by landslips and the increasingly ham-fisted attempts at solving the problem.

Anger is mounting in the Kintyre communities as last week the road was closed yet again for several days – this time because heavy rain was forecast which meant it was unsafe.

This is Scotland, a relatively wet country in the North Atlantic in the 21st century after all.

These constant closures should not be happening in such a climate and this is where newspapers play their part.

When the road was closed again for a period of time several years ago, we at The Herald decided to investigate why it was now closing on a regular basis despite millions being spent on trying to fix it.

This is a situation that goes far beyond Kintyre as it affects all of us in that the millions of pounds being spent in a vain attempt to fix is taxpayers cash.

It is also incumbent on newspapers to closely scrutinise governments and their agencies to call them to account when things go wrong. This, The Herald has done this with its series of articles on the problems faced by Transport Scotland in its efforts to remedy the situation.

Officials have been accused of wasting over £80m in failed solutions to landslides. Up to

2020, some £15m had been invested in catch pits and other solutions as part of a £79.2m spent on maintenance and resilience on the road since 2007.

A series of catch-pits were installed aimed at preventing road closures came after a major landslip around 650 feet above the carriageway shut the road in August, 2020.

One of the landslip mitigation catch-pits, built to prevent landslip material reaching the road, caught around 2,000 tonnes – but it did not stop thousands more tonnes hitting the road.

Between January, 2020 and February, 2021 the road had been closed due to landslides for 130 days.

Last week it was closed again and undoubtedly will be closed several times over the winter too.

The Herald will continue to scrutinise the A83 and report on the failures until it is finally fixed. It is our job after all, and readers should expect nothing less.