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Forestry and Land Scotland confirm disruption to A82 south of Drumnadrochit ahead of resumption of vital logging work above the busy Inverness-Glasgow road


By Philip Murray

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The fencing above the A82 is being installed to keep motorists safe from falling trees on the steep slopes. Picture: FLS.
The fencing above the A82 is being installed to keep motorists safe from falling trees on the steep slopes. Picture: FLS.

LOGGING-related work is expected to bring disruption to the A82 south of Drumnadrochit for the next few months.

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) has confirmed that it will resume its long-term felling work next to Loch Ness from October.

But before that, the steepness of the slope will require the installation of safety fencing from March to May.

And a week of surveying for that fencing will begin either next week “or as soon as conditions allow”, the organisation has confirmed.

The felling work is part of FLS’ “Steep Ground Felling Programme”, which is working to clear mature and potentially unstable conifers from the steep slopes along the A82. By doing this, the organisation hopes to remove the risk they might be blown over in a storm and onto the road or nearby utilities.

The work, and imminent preparations, are expected to require traffic management on a half-a-kilometre stretch of the A82 below Grotaig.

A 500 metre section of the A82 will be subject to the traffic management system. Picture: FLS/Ordnance Survey.
A 500 metre section of the A82 will be subject to the traffic management system. Picture: FLS/Ordnance Survey.

Keith Black, FLS’s Regional Steep Ground Programme Manager, said: “Our Covid-19 response prioritised staff safety and maintaining the timber supplies that were required to manufacture essential supplies needed in the national Covid-19 effort.

“But we are now at the stage where we are able to resume other work, and we are preparing to pick up our steep ground programme where we left off.

“As ever, the safety of our staff, contractors and the public, is top priority so as we install the safety fencing, a process that could potentially dislodge loose debris, we will be introducing traffic management on the road below the area where we’ll be working.”

The traffic management will cover a 500m stretch of road south of the forest entrance at Bark Sheds (aka Grotaig), and will involve stopping traffic in both directions for up to 10 minutes - but only as required.

The fencing above the A82 is being installed to keep motorists safe from falling trees on the steep slopes. Picture: FLS.
The fencing above the A82 is being installed to keep motorists safe from falling trees on the steep slopes. Picture: FLS.

It will be in effect from Monday to Friday and from 9am to 5pm.

Mr Black added: “We understand that this will inevitably cause some minor frustrations and we apologise for this in advance but we will work with our geo-technical team and our partners, Transport Scotland and Bear Scotland, to minimise any inconvenience.”


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