Rain causes A82 landslip

Heavy rain has caused travel disruption in the north west of Scotland with the A82 bearing the brunt of the conditions.

The A82 was closed between Ballachulish roundabout and Fort William due to safety concerns after a landslip, but the road was due to re-open under traffic management before 4pm this afternoon (27 October 2014).

A Met Office Amber warning for rain in Highland and Western regions has been extended until tomorrow (28 October 2014) at noon and the Scottish government and its partners are monitoring the situation closely as well as responding to on-going incidents.

The rainfall in the last few days has been particularly heavy north of the Great Glen, where there have been accumulations of around 125mm to 150mm in the last 36 hours.

Transport Minister Keith Brown, who earlier chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government’s Resilience Room, said: “We have experienced some challenging conditions in the North West Highlands over the last two days and the Scottish government and our partners have been working hard to mitigate the impacts of the heavy rain and the strong winds.

“The A82 has bourne the brunt of the heavy rain. This resulted in a landslide and large amounts of debris falling onto the road. However, our operating company BEAR Scotland and the Forestry Commission have told me that they will have the road open under traffic management very soon.

“I know that people in the area have been inconvenienced but I hope that they understand that safety has to be our top priority in dealing in this type of scenario. All of the bridges in the area have had to be inspected for damage and now that this has been done of our efforts are going into making the hillside safe to allow the route to be used.

“With the Amber warning extending into tomorrow lunchtime we have to prepared for further heavy rain and, with as much as an extra 80mm expected, our Multi-Agency Response Team will remain active until conditions improve.”