SCOTLAND'S most infamous road is set to remain closed today after a safety inspection over continuing fears of landslides due to rain.
It means the A83 at the Rest and be Thankful will have been shut down for at least part of the day in most days for the past fortnight.
The key Highlands artery was shut overnight and now Bear Scotland, the road maintenance firm contracted by the Scottish Government's Transport Scotland agency has said it will remain shut on Wednesday morning and afternoon due to "a heavy rain forecast".
It comes amidst continuing criticism over money "wasted" over failed temporary fixes involving catch pits to the A83 and continued calls for a swift permanent solution to the landslip problem.
Catch pits are designed to ‘capture’ debris material from a landslip and prevent it from reaching the road.
Campaigners have been calling for a full public inquiry to determine why road is still not fixed.
A campaign - backed by 1500 businesses have been fighting for a permanent solution by 2024 after an over 15-year failure to prevent disruption.
The official single track diversion route, the Old Military Road (OMR) which runs through the centre of Glen Croe will continue to act as a the diversion through a convoy system.
Engineers will be continuing to monitor the hillside conditions closely.
They have previously said that heavy rain and snow melt will increase hillside saturation levels and that daily inspections will continue to inform decision making.
The Herald revealed last year that transport chiefs had spent some £8.5m on "wasted" temporary sticking plaster fixes to try to prevent landslips on the key road over five years.
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.
One of the landslip mitigation catch-pits, built to prevent landslip material reaching the road, caught around 2,000 tonnes - but it did not stop thousands more tonnes hitting the road.
The slip ushered in a series of road closures for the important Highlands route which by January, 2021 had meant it was open for barely three weeks in the space of five months.
A flashback to a past landslip
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.
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 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.
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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