SCOTLAND's most notorious road is to shut again today following new worries about landslides due to heavy rain.
The A83 at the Rest and be Thankful was shut from 7pm on Saturday morning and opened again on Monday morning due to a bout of heavy rain.
But road engineers who continued to raise concerns about the amount of rainfall saturating the nearby hillside, have said that the key Highlands road artery will have to shut again on Monday night as a "safety precuation".
It has been shut down for at least part of the day in most days since February 11.
Bear Scotland, the road maintenance firm contracted by the Scottish Government's Transport Scotland agency says that that the official single track diversion route, the Old Military Road (OMR) which runs through the centre of Glen Croe will act as a the diversion through a convoy system from 7pm today.
Engineers will consider whether to re-open the road on Tuesday morning.
The restriction comes in six hours after the end of a Met Office yellow warning for wind in relation to Storm Franklin.
The move comes amidst continuing criticism over money "wasted" over failed temporary fixes involving catch pits to the A83.
Catch pits are designed to ‘capture’ debris material from a landslip and prevent it from reaching the road.
A wall was built to try and prevent landslips.
Moves over catch-pits aimed at preventing road closures came after a major landslip around 650 feet above the carriageway shut the road in August, 2020.
Engineers said thousands of tonnes of debris including car-sized boulders slid onto the road after 100mm of rain hit the Argyll hills.
Campaigners have been calling for a full public inquiry to determine why road is still not fixed.
Transport minister Graeme Dey said last year that improving the resilience of the A83 at the Rest and Be Thankful "is one of our top priorities" and that they were continuing to work on a permanent long term solution to the issue.
Construction of a catch-pit on the road was completed last August having taken over twice as long to install as promised.
In February, last year, the A83 and the OMR was shut after hundreds of tons of debris fell in another landslip.
That is despite £1m being spent on 175-metre long, 6.6 metre high barrier having been built next to the OMR to stop debris from a potential landslip.
A campaign - backed by 1500 businesses fought for a permanent solution by 2024 after an over 15-year failure to prevent disruption.
A new A83 route which could include a tunnel close to the A83 has been identified as the Scottish Government's favoured permanent solution - but it is a long-term solution which could take seven to ten years to complete after being approved.
A helicopter was brought in after a landslip in August, 2020 to make a 100 tonne boulder safe by using water bags to manoeuvre it into a safe location
But that choice has now led to five new options on the table for the new Glen Croe route, some of which include tunnels up to 1.8 miles long.
Last month a £1.8m contact was awarded to carry out preliminary ground investigations to help identify a long-term solution for the landslip-prone road.
Raeburn Drilling & Geotechnical Ltd will undertake the work, which is part of efforts to identify a preferred route option.
Investigations are scheduled to begin this month with the work expected to last between eight and ten weeks.
The cost of the works – which will help to inform the design process for the scheme – are said to reflect both the “challenging landscape” presented at the route and the “range and nature” of the options under consideration.
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