All work on the visitor centre side of the road has been finished, and we’ve been busy planting trees and wildflowers into the newly landscaped areas. These will continue to look a little bare until the spring, but as soon as we get some sun, they should spring into life and start to fill out with new greenery.
Work is continuing on the north side of the tunnel to divert a high pressure water mains pipe. As we’ve said in previous blogs, this part of the project was unexpectedly delayed following the exceptionally dry summer and low water levels in reservoirs. However, Scottish Water have given permission for the work to take place and this work is now in progress.
In the meantime, we’d like to thank all local residents and commuters for their continued patience regarding the traffic controls on the B9097.
This project is about opening up access at Loch Leven to all visitors, no matter what their abilities, but a key objective has always been to keep disruption for current road users and visitors to a minimum while the work takes place. Our contractor’s preferred method for tackling this project was to close the B9097 entirely, which would have led to a 10-mile diversion being in place. We felt this was an unacceptable burden to place on local residents, and may have had an impact on tourism in the area, particularly over the busy summer months. Avoiding this road closure, however, meant accepting a longer, more complex construction process, a later end date, and considerable extra costs.
Now that the major work on the underpass has been completed, some visitors have been asking why the lights are still in place. But for the traffic controls to be removed, all work near the road must be completed, crash barriers installed and the Roads Authority must complete a satisfactory road safety audit.
All going well with the audit, we currently think this should be achievable by early December.
In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss this matter with staff at the reserve, please get in touch.