B8001 Claonaig Road (Skipness Road)

Work is planned to repair the part of the B8001 Claonaig Road affected by land slips.

Current situation

Our contractor mobilised on site on Monday 20 May in order to start work, which is expected to last until late September.

During this time, we and our Contractor will do our utmost to minimise disruption to the public and the road will remain open for use under traffic management, with the exception of some overnight closures required for road crossings of pipes – timings are to be confirmed but these will be kept to a minimum. The Contractor will be on site during these closures and will manage any necessary traffic flow accordingly.

Current operations on site include:

Installation of silt and water management at the scour protection works.
Setting out and initial excavations of the upper slope – careful inspection and assessment of this material will be required throughout the Works
Preparation of a materials management / laydown area to enable sustainable movement / use of excess material.

Further works will include:

approximately 60m of scour protection (rock armour) works at the lower slope / river bank
temporary works, including site through-traffic access and upslope excavations
permanent works, including realignment and reconstruction of 120 metres of road and associated drainage, embankment strengthening, and formation of verges and ditches
re-instatement of temporarily diverted overhead cable, which will be completed by BT Openreach on completion of the works

Soils Management

Significant work has been successfully completed in order to obtain a SEPA license exemption that allows the re-use of excavated soils to improve an area of land adjacent to the Works. This results in reduced costs to:
- the environment (reduced carbon footprint),
- the roads network (avoiding damage to roads and structures due to high volumes of material haulage)
- the project budget (the cost of haulage to another site or licensed tip is high).

Already undertaken

Traffic management / road signage is set-up.
Contractors’ Site Compound and environmental barriers set-up.
Clearance of areas for the planned scour protection works on the lower slope.
Access to the Scour Protection site from the B8001/lower field.
Installation of the access track and material lay down areas for the Scour Protection site from the B8001/lower field is substantially complete.
Setting out of the upper slope excavations.

Associated works

Although not directly part of these works, the impact of Arran Ferry traffic affecting the narrow B8001 close to the site has been discussed. This has been shown to impact the general through traffic at the ferry terminal when queues back up to the B8001 road. We will undertake a topographical survey on this stretch of road to look at options for reducing the impact on the B8001 of denser traffic to the Ferry terminal (usually when ferry services are rerouted at peak times). This is a preliminary step, with no allocated funding as yet, and will include assessment of the costs involved.