Having made a proper pig’s ear of their proposed ‘Population Summit’, Argyll and Bute Council appears to be casting around for some other popular cause to try to plant its fingerprints on. Anything but getting down to cranking the Argyll economy into forward movement. That’s a bit too hard.
The council is hosting another invitation-only event, this time with no speakers at all – which they are calling a ‘Stakeholders Consultation on the A83 at Rest and Be Thankful’.
This is to be an open forum – and a wasting of the time of the business and political communities from which the invitees are drawn.
The invitation to the event – in the council room at Kilmory at 14.30 on 28th May – is couched as aiming: ‘… to develop an Argyll and Bute position [Ed: our emphasis] to be presented to the Minister, Keith Brown, at the next A83 Taskforce Group meeting’.
The daft thing here is that there is nothing to hold a position about. As they say, that bus has left.
The Transport Minister’s A83 Task Force, on which the council – and the business community, were represented as of right, considered the six options resulting from Transport Scotland’s commissioned feasibility study, discussed them – and chose the cheapest one.
This was the option known as the Red Route – which involved:
- the creation of an emergency diversion route through Glen Croe, to serve when the A83 is hit by a landslide;
- the scouring, clearing and management of watercourses on the hill above the A83 on Rest and Be Thankful;
- the installation of debris netting at strategic locations on the hillside where there is clear risk of landslides;
- the installation of sensors on the hill to warn of any incipient movement;
- mitigation measures on locations at Butter Bridge and Cairndow /Glen Shira;
- the planting of trees in appropriate location on the hillside above the A83 at Rest and Be Thankful.
This option was freely chosen – and apparently unanimously so – by the A83 Task Force representatives, including council representatives and business community representatives.
Whether they were right or wrong in this choice is now irrelevant. The Red Route option was their choice. Transport Scotland has now delivered it – with only the mitigation measures at Point 5 above and the tree planting at Point 6 above still to be completed.
Not only has everything else been completed, it has patently been done well. Again, it is irrelevant now whether this was the right option to have chosen. That chosen option has been honourably delivered – and there is nothing more to be said – or done.
There is no more money, There are no more plans. There was never any suggestion from the Task Force that there would be. A decision is a decision and the decision to go for the Red Route was taken.
Do the council think they can reopen the option choice?
The single defined item on the council’s brief programme for the session on 28th May is the provision of background information on: ‘Measures completed to date and options previously considered.’
The Open Forum remit is: ‘What is required for the future’.
Both of these items suggest that the Council imagines that the matter is still open – or that they can get it reopened. It isn’t. They can’t.
What IS required for the future
The council’s single imperative today is to get Argyll’s economy growing, stalling depopulation and then reversing it.
It is no accident that the best road in Scotland, the A90, leads to Aberdeen.
Aberdeen’s local economy is stonking. Aberdeen is delivering growth. House prices in Aberdeen, after the 2008 financial collapse, barely moved. Aberdeen is in a position to demand.
Until Argyll delivers growth and arrests decline, it is no position to demand anything. Without an economy reliably and consistently on the move upwards, Argyll can only sit with the begging bowl.
It is fantasy for the council to imagine that it can waltz into the next meeting of the A83 Task Force and present an ‘Argyll and Bute position’ that was not presented when their and the business community representatives on the Task Force chose the option that has now been all but delivered.
This event is no more than grandstanding by a tarnished organisation unable and afraid to address the economic development challenge which is its core priority if Argyll is to be sustainable; and is instead casting around for any popular distraction it hopes might make it look good.
‘It’s the economy, stupid’.