The ferry plies across Loch Linnhe at the Corran Narrows and is an integral link to the Morvern and Ardnamurchan peninsulas.
Highland Council says that more than £650,000 of remedial work is needed at the eastern slipway, earmarked for May/June. It will mean a huge increase in traffic on the A861 single-track road from Ardgour along the western shore of Loch Linnhe then Loch Eil-side before joining the main A830 Mallaig to Fort William road.
Sunart, Acharacle, West Ardnamurchan and Morvern community councils issued a joint statement yesterday saying: “The closure of the Corran Ferry to us is equivalent to shutting down the Forth road and rail bridges, the M1 or the London ring road for a month. It would not be tolerated there and it should not be tolerated here.”
They say that the huge detour is not their main concern. “We can cope with that, but we are not prepared to accept the risk to life and limb and the economic consequences for our communities, that such a poorly thought-out proposal presents. Few, if any, contingency plans seem to have been put in place with regard to the emergency services fire, ambulance, medical and police.”
According to the community councils, the A861 has few passing places and is physically in-capable of accepting the volume of local and visitor traffic.
“In May and June last year, there were around 1000 vehicles per day carried on the Corran Ferry and we have serious and justified concerns about the safety of using such a road. Gridlock will be a daily event and the emergency services would find it impossible to access any incident which, as is inevitable, were to take place along the route.
“Astonishingly, by their own admission, Highland Council acknowledges that no risk assessment has been carried out on the use of this road to carry all the ferry traffic in both directions. We have photographic evidence of one bridge on the A861 Locheil-side road which is supported by a row of acro-props. Do they really believe that this can carry in excess of 1000
vehicles per day up to the size of articulated timber lorries?
A spokesman for Highland Council said carrying out the work without a suspension of the ferry operation was not
feasible adding that the council had been in discussion with the emergency services to develop contingency plans.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article