Highland Council to assign roads improvement cash

Councillors are to assign a new strategic roads fund aimed at targetting the worst routes in the north.

Announced as part of this year's council budget the Caithness and Skye areas come out on top with a funding allocation worth almost £3.6 million.

This covers more than 200,000m2 on 62 roads.

Ross and Cromarty area will get funding of £1.3 million for two areas covering 65,400m2 while Badenoch and Strathspey will get just £127,875 worth of work for 4125 m2 of roads there.

Inverness will see work to eight of its worst roads totalling 30,405m2 at a cost of £999,900 including works to Old Perth Road, Carsegate Road and the B851 Farr to A9 route.

Nairn will get £134,323 for 4333m2 on the B9101/ B9090 junction to Geddes Burn; Lochaber £695,336 for 22,133m2 and Sutherland will get £834,950 for 41,650m2 of road.

All proposed work and financial allocations have to be approved by the council's economy and infrastructure committee, which is due to meet this morning.

In a paper for today's meeting principal engineer for transport planning and roads Elizabeth Maciver said: “For the £7.7 million strategic allocation, the service was asked to produce a further list of road surface treatment schemes, utilising engineering judgement and local knowledge to determine which projects were to be included.

“The project list has been compiled in conjunction with each road operations manager and technical staff, to identify those which they could undertake in 2023/24.

“A diverse approach was taken, looking at urban and rural localities as well as all classes of roads, including where representations from members or the public had been received.”

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