Rutted road rattles Loch Ness drivers
A major road artery to and from Inverness has become so cut up a 30mph limit has had to be imposed.
One Inverness motorist who risked damage to his car by travelling on the A82 alongside Loch Ness said: "It is not so much potholed as looking as if it has been bombed."
While potholes and ruts are becoming an everyday hazard for motorists, Bear Scotland who maintain the trunk roads in Highland for Transport Scotland, had to bring in a speed limit on a section about a quarter of a mile long, about two miles south of Alltsigh.
The badly rutted section comes at the south end of a long straight which is one of the few safe overtaking sections between Inverness and Fort Augustus.
Still images of the road taken by Google Maps last summer show that the stretch of road had been patched and repaired, but not given a complete new surface.
A spokesperson for Bear Scotland said: "The section of road in question has been highlighted for resurfacing for some time, however when schemes were prioritised in autumn 2017 in line with available funds, the project was included in the list of works to be undertaken in 2018. This was based on the normal predicted rate of deterioration.
"Unfortunately, similar to a number of areas on the road network, the section has deteriorated quicker than anticipated due to the particular bend of cold and wet weather. It has therefore been incorporated into an urgent programme of works involving 60 locations across the North West to be completed before the end of March.
"In the meantime, a speed limit has been erected and weekly safety inspections and repairs will be carried out until it has been resurfaced."
Repairing the 60 urgent areas will cost £4 million and involve seven dedicated road crews.
Eddie Ross, Bear Scotland’s North West representative said: "We’ve over £4 million investment into an urgent programme of repair across trunk roads in the area to address sections that are deteriorating rapidly.
"This winter has brought frequent heavy rain followed by sub-zero temperatures across our network of roads causing unprecedented damage.
"We fully understand the frustration from the local community regarding the road surface at some locations, and rest assured we are doing all we can to carry out the programme of repairs as safely and quickly as possible."
The programme will be on http://bit.ly/BEARScotRepairs The state of the Loch Ness-side road was highlighted as Highland Council promised this week to protect roads from budget cuts being debated yesterday in Inverness. The council repair non trunk roads.
Councillor Allan Henderson, chair of the environment, development and infrastructure committee, said this week: "We have nearly 7,000 kilometres of roads in the Highlands and this network is vital to our rural communities and lifeline services.
"Every penny invested in maintaining this critical network also helps to support our tourism and business economy as well as improve connectivity for everyone in the Highlands. This is why the budget we are proposing protects spending on roads and will allow us to drive forward continued improvement to the network.
"During low temperatures our roads teams are only able to undertake temporary pot-hole repairs using cold tar and they are undertaking as many of these as they can while also carrying out winter gritting duties.
"Our programme of planned repairs using the council’s Jet-patcher plus other hired in equipment will commence from March 2018 when the weather improves and when there are no frosts.
"We urge motorists to report potholes using our online ‘potholes’ form on our website at www.highland.gov.uk/report so that we can plan and prioritise the most urgent repairs starting in March.
"In the meantime any potholes that are considered to pose a major threat to public safety are being temporarily patched."
