A pier development project is set to remove more than 2,500 timber lorry trips and 480,000 lorry miles each year from roads in west Scotland.
Unveiled this week by Scotland’s transport minister Sarah Boyack, the refurbished Lochaline pier will enable Iggesund Paperboard to transport timber from the Morvern Peninsula to Corpach and Troon by sea.
According to Steve Bradley, Iggesund Forestry UK’s forest manager for the west of Scotland, the project ‘eliminates the use of 64 miles of single track road between Lochaline and Fort William’. Around 30,000 tonnes of timber will be carried on the sea route each year, he added.
The Lochaline project was backed by a £693,000 Freight Facilities Grant. Some £266,000 was spent on pier refurbishment and on building a private road from the forest direct to the pier, while the remainder will help towards timber shipping costs over a 10-year period. Noting the frustration felt by drivers stuck behind lorries on west Highland roads, Ms Boyack described the venture as ‘a practical, effective solution to a problem which has caused road misery for too long’.
