B8001 Road at Claonaig (Skipness Road)

Work is ongoing to repair a stretch of the B8001 road at Claonaig affected by land slips.

Current situation

Our contractor mobilised to site on Monday 20 May for works which are programmed for completion at the beginning of October.

During this time, we and our contractor will do our utmost to minimise disruption to the public and the road will remain open for use under traffic management, with the exception of some overnight closures required for road crossing of drainage pipes. Timings are to be confirmed but these will be kept to a minimum. The contractor will be on site during these closures and will manage any necessary traffic flow accordingly.

Current operations on site include:

Excavation of the upper slope to formation level of the new road construction – careful inspection and assessment of this material is required throughout the works. Challenges include dealing with large quantities of saturated soils whilst providing a stable working area, and keeping the road open for users. This requires carefully assessed temporary works including drainage and excavation bays.
Installation and infill of mesh units and geogrid layers to provide a strengthened embankment upslope of the new road.
Switching traffic to alternate sides of the existing road to enable road excavation and construction.
Construction of the temporary road.
Excavation of existing road to new road formation level.
Installation of upgraded drainage.
Grading and finishing of the area of land around the scour protection site.
Re-use of excavated soils in land improvement area adjacent to the site.

Further works will include:

Full depth Construction to base layer pavement of approximately 120m of new road at a lowered level.
Completion of upslope infill and grading.
Installation of upgraded drainage.
Binder and surface courses laid to new road pavement.
Formation of road verges and installation of fences.
Removal of temporary surfaces and barriers / fences.
Final grading and finishing to surfaces (top-soil and seeding etc).
Demobilisation and reinstatement of site compound surfaces.
Re-instatement of temporarily diverted overhead poles and cables, (set out by the Works Contractor but completed by BT Openreach to their timing).

Soils Management

Significant work has been completed successfully in order to obtain a SEPA license exemption that allows the re-use of excavated soils to improve an area of land adjacent to the Works. This results in reduced costs to:
- the environment (reduced carbon footprint),
- the roads network (avoiding damage to roads and structures due to high volumes of material haulage)
- the project budget.
We re-used less excavated soils than we planned in the strengthened embankment, due mainly to their very saturated state, which was not helped by the very wet summer. This has resulted in the need to import suitable material for the embankment mesh fill, and in the export of material that exceeds the capacity of the land improvement area. This still results in reduced costs as noted above but haulage on the public road will be increased during August/September.

Works complete include:

Temporary diversion of BT Openreach fibre optic and copper cables.
Temporary works including drainage / water management
Traffic management / road signage.
Contractors' Site Compound and environmental barriers.
Site clearance and accommodation works.
Access tracks to various parts of the site.
Installation of scour protection in the form of rock armour at the base of the slope / river bank.
Upper slope excavations and partial installation/infill of strengthening layers.
Preparation and continuing use of a materials management / laydown area to enable sustainable movement / use of excess material.

Associated works

Although not directly part of these works, the impact of Arran Ferry traffic on the narrow B8001 close to the site has been discussed. This has been shown to impact the general through traffic at the ferry terminal when queues back up to the B8001 road. A topographical survey has been undertaken on this stretch of road and options are being considered for reducing the impact to the B8001 of denser traffic to the ferry terminal (usually when ferry services are re-routed at peak times). This is a preliminary step, with no allocated funding as yet, and will include assessment of the costs involved.