Timber transport fund set to repair sections of busy B9176 Struie Hill route as Scottish Government targets 'a green recovery from Covid-19' and support for sector that fuels thousands of jobs
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A STRETCH of road in Ross-shire is set to share from a slice of a £2.2 million Scottish Government award to help the transportation of timber.
The cash boost to Highland Council is drawn from the Strategic Timber Transport Fund managed by Scottish Forestry.
The funding goes mostly to improve minor roads – improving surfaces, widening corners, adding traffic calming measures or providing passing places. All these measures aim to help keep the flow of timber moving to market and reduce impacts on local communities.
Amongst those benefitting is the B9176 Struie Hill.
This is a busy road for timber traffic with several areas of forest exiting onto the route and some through traffic from further north.
The work involves 1500m of edge strengthening/widening and patching and 5200m2 overlay, in total, spread across various locations. This tends to be focused where the edge of the road is overrun by traffic and starts deforming and cracking.
Given the scale of works, it will only tackle the poorer sections of what is a 24km stretch of road. Earlier in the year the road was shut for some emergency repairs by the council to damage exacerbated by the cold winter.
The STTS support of £210,000 is 70 per cent of the £300,000 total cost of the improvements. The remaining 30 per cent is funded by the council.
Màiri McAllan, Minister for Environment, Biodiversity and Land Reform said: “A green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic is imperative and, as part of that, we are committed to supporting our forestry sector given its role in our transition to net zero. The sector also provides thousands of jobs and generates around £1 billion to our economy each year.
“By improving our timber transport network we can help the industry get its timber to market and ensure economic benefits continue. It will also reduce the effects that timber lorries can have on small local communities.”
The roads to get improvements on include:
A837 Rosehall to Benmore
Abriachan – Docfour road and bridge works
B873 Altnaharra and Syre
A897 Helmsdale Melvich road strengthening
U2054 Saval Rd, Lairg
B9176 Struie Hill
In addition, the funding will pay for the continuation of a timber transport project officer who advises and assists with generating local projects.
A private woodland owner in Ardnamurchan will receive a £130,000 contribution to construct a timber stacking area, build a small bridge and upgrade a section of a forest road to help move timber out of the forest.
In the last five years, the Scottish Government has invested around £41 million through the fund into over 200 timber transport projects, helping over 55 million tonnes of timber get to market.
