Timber! Forestry lorries clogging rural roads are cut down to size

MORE than 177,000 timber lorry journeys will be taken off some of Scotland's most fragile rural roads over the next ten years, the Scottish Government has announced.

The reduction in heavy traffic - and four million tonnes of timber - is being carried out under the government's Strategic Timber Transport Scheme (STTS) to make communities quieter, safer and cleaner.

The scheme was set up in 2005 and has distributed 14.1 million in grant support among 38 projects with an overall value of nearly 30m.

Some areas are experiencing traffic from the 44-tonne lorries for the first time with forest harvesting coming on stream from maturing plantations.

Projects aimed at off-setting disturbance include building new gravel roads through the forests to bypass villages or sections of fragile public road, diverting heavy traffic on to better roads or upgrading the fragile sections of road.

The scheme has also funded projects to transport timber by sea from ports in Argyll and from coastal forests at Glenelg and Loch Etive.

Stewart Stevenson, the environment and climate change minister, said: "The scheme is proving to be very successful. The grants have drawn in an equivalent amount of funding, helping to lessen the impact on communities and to reduce the damage done to rural roads."

He said it is predicted that over the next decade 15 million tonnes of timber (around 680,000 lorry loads) will travel on STTS projects and that four million tonnes of timber (about 177,000 lorry loads) will be taken off Scotland's rural B and C class roads entirely.

"In addition to that, some of the schemes, such as the West Coast projects to extract and transport timber by sea, have resulted in new companies being formed, jobs being created and employment made more secure," he said.

"To achieve this in the teeth of the economic difficulties of the past few years is testament to the strength of Scotland's timber sector and to the level of confidence in the industry."

John Kissock, chairman of Scottish Forestry and Timber Technologies Advisory Group, said that last year Scotland's forests produced more than five million tonnes of logs (about 200,000 lorry loads) supplying an industry worth 460m a year to the economy and maintaining 13,200 jobs in rural areas.

"The scheme focuses on the main concentrations of plantation forest where taking even 10 per cent of these lorry journeys off the road is a great help," he said."In the longer term, however, we need to continue to upgrade our transport networks to serve this sustainable 'low carbon' industry."

Recent STTS schemes include 1.3m of improvements to 7.5 miles of the B709 at Craik in the Borders; 1m to upgrade the B880 Strong road in Arran; 761,000 for a new road and upgrade of existing road on Annandale estate; and 400,000 to improve and strengthen parts of the A897 in Sutherland.

However, residents in Argyll complained that 1m from the STTS, used towards a 5.6m 22-mile route to remove 40,000 lorry loads from single-track roads and villages, will also provide access to a 20-turbine wind farm.

They argued that the STTS should be used only for timber transport, not to help private developers.