Transport secretary Fiona Hyslop urged to listen over roads funding for Caithness
A Caithness roads campaigner has urged Scottish Transport Secretary, Fiona Hyslop, to “get something done about the utterly appalling state” of council-maintained roads in the far north.
Iain Gregory, the co-founder of Caithness Roads Recovery, said that after more than three years of “relentless campaigning” the situation has reached breaking point. He wrote to Ms Hyslop in “the hope we can finally get the message across to the Scottish Government”.
In his letter, Mr Gregory says: “Caithness Roads Recovery was formed in February of 2021, in response to the near collapse of the roads network in Caithness. Since then we have had countless front pages in the press, we have given numerous TV and radio interviews, we have published thousands of photographs, we have written the equivalent of several novels, and we have contacted everyone up to and including the Prime Minister and the First Minister.
“And still – over three years later – the far north is in a state which I have frequently described as a ‘patchwork quilt of neglect’; ‘a shameful testament to the results of centralisation, and the marginalisation of our county’ and ‘a symptom of a far deeper underlying malaise’.”
Mr Gregory points out that from the outset the campaign group was told the issue was one for Highland Council but he stressed the local authority does not have the money to carry out the repairs.
“Approaches to Scottish Government ministers always resulted in letters arriving from Transport Scotland explaining to us that this was a matter for the Highland Council, while communications sent to Westminster resulted in our being advised that this was a devolved matter. We have yet to receive the courtesy of a visit to the county from a senior member of the Scottish Government, with our emails and letters quite clearly being forwarded to Transport Scotland for the standard reply to be sent to us.”
Mr Gregory continued: “We know perfectly well that the duty to maintain non-trunk roads falls to the council, but it does not alter the fact that Caithness is part of Highland, which is part of Scotland, and it is the primary function of government to protect its citizens.
“The cost of putting things right across Highland is, according to a recent FOI request, submitted by Rhoda Grant MSP, £233 million, and Caithness requires – we estimate – about £25 million of that sum.
“Highland Council does not have, and never will have, that amount of money, although this is not a vast sum in national terms, and there is a desperate need for the funding to be made available.”
Mr Gregory sent the Transport Secretary recent photographs of some of the roads so she could see “just how disastrous the situation really is. And yes, these really are public roads,” he said.
The campaigner invited Ms Hyslop to visit Caithness “to see just how serious things have become”.