First Minister invited to come to Caithness and see the 'absolutely dire' state of the roads in the far north

A CAITHNESS campaign group has invited Scotland's new First Minister, Humza Yousaf, to come to the far north to see the "absolutely dire" state of the roads and urged him to make a "personal intervention" to ensure the vital funding is provided.

The invitation was made by Caithness Roads Recovery (CRR) co-founder, Iain Gregory, in a letter to Mr Yousaf who succeeded Nicola Sturgeon in the top post last month.

Mr Gregory said: "The state of our Highland Council maintained roads, throughout Caithness, is now absolutely dire. It is beyond doubt that they are far, far worse than any other area in Highland, and – we have no doubt – they are the poorest in Scotland. We desperately need help, and the fact that the Highland Council themselves have voted, unanimously, to write to the Scottish Government, seeking emergency funding, bears this out. While we are aware that some further money may become available in the current financial year, the sums required to put matters right across Caithness are very substantially beyond the resources of the council."

He added: "Can I please ask for your personal intervention in this matter? I would also extend an invitation to you to visit Caithness, where CRR would be more than pleased to take you on a tour of the county so that you could see exactly how bad things are."

The former senior police officer explained that he broached the condition of the Caithness roads with Mr Humza and his two leadership contenders, Kate Forbes and Ash Regan, at a hustings event in Inverness on March 17.

At that time, Mr Gregory, said: "The council maintained roads network in Caithness is in a state of virtual collapse, with many roads now dangerous to use. The constant response from the Scottish Government to CRR is that 'This is a matter for the council', ignoring the fact that the sums required greatly exceed the council's resources. What action will you take as FM to rectify the dangerous and unacceptable condition of the roads and pavements in Caithness"?

"You acknowledged that you were aware of the situation, as did Kate Forbes and Ash Regan, and you mentioned that you had recently visited Caithness, to meet with local health campaigners, and so had first-hand knowledge of the matter," Mr Gregory stated in his letter.

He said: "It was also interesting to hear your views on the question of de-centralisation, and the possibility of devolution of powers to community councils, both being issues which we believe are highly relevant in this regard."

Mr Gregory wants the First Minister to take swift action to sort out the deteriorating roads and pavements which are in a "dangerous and unacceptable condition". He hopes Mr Humza can provide "a very substantial emergency funding" to tackle "the third-world conditions currently endured by the people of this county".

"We have maintained from day one of the campaign that Caithness has been ignored, marginalised and neglected and that centralisation to Inverness has been an unmitigated disaster. This, combined with constant underfunding of the Highland Council, allied with ring-fencing of what money there is, has resulted in a situation where we face a near total collapse of our roads infrastructure."

As previously reported, Mr Gregory pointed out that Caithness has more road defects than other parts of the Highlands with the number here being 6.65 for every kilometre. The figure for Inverness is 2.13 a kilometre and 3.49 for Ross and Cromarty. In Nairn it is 0.62. "That means that Caithness has over ten times the level of defects in Nairn," he said.

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