An extra £100k investment in Skye and Raasay’s roads announced at Area Committee

Isle of Skye and Raasay Area Committee members today welcomed a near doubling of its annual roads maintenance to help repair the islands’ roads which were badly affected by winter.

The entire Highland Council capital roads budget has been set at £17.2m.

The Isle of Skye and Raasay revenue budget allocation is now £1.1m, which is primarily to cover labour, plant and materials (including salt) for roads cyclical maintenance and winter maintenance activities for the 2021/22 season.

The capital budget allocation is now £1.07m and will be used to undertake surface dressing and surfacing schemes. A Ward Allocation of £100K was included in the Capital Budget allocation.

Chair of Isle of Skye and Raasay Area Committee, Cllr John Gordon, said: “We have to be happy to see an increased investment in our roads, which is a really good news story, we know there’s much to do around the road network and works should start soon.

“The baseline capital budget we normally get for Skye has almost doubled and this extra funding will help us to improve roads at our tourist hot spots as well as start to repair some of the damage caused by a very harsh winter.”

The capital plan includes approximately 4,000m of surface dressing for the A850 Carbost to Glenbernisdale junction, 3,000m of surface dressing on the C1244 Ardvasar to Aird of Sleat and 2,750m of surface dressing on the A863 Sligachan to Drynoch Junction phase one.

Other surface dressing projects planned include 1,500m of the C1235 on Raasay, 2,500m on the A850 Clahamish to Bernisdale road, 2,400m on various roads in the Marrisshadder and Maligar spur and 1000m on the U4892 Old Corry road.

Other projects include regulate/overlay work on the C1225 at the Quiraing, the C1231 at Vatten, the C1229 at Claigan and various roads in Portree village, including Home Farm.