Following recent inspections, Shetland Islands Council has issued notices of “defective reinstatements” on sections of the A970 road, following works by SSEN to install cabling beneath the road.
Notices of “defective reinstatements” were issued last week for four sections of road between Sand Water and Petta Water on the ‘Lang Kames’ section of the A970 which have been reinstated using concrete surfaces. On these sections of road, concrete was used for reinstatement works when the asphalt batching plant at the Scord Quarry was shut down earlier this year for essential planned maintenance.
SSEN’s contractors are currently replacing concrete in these four sections of road with bitmac and this work is due to be completed this week.
Works currently underway on the A968 Voe to Firth, and A970 Wadbister to Voe roads are part of Scottish & Southern Energy Network’s (SSEN’s) ‘North Mainland Shetland Reinforcement Project’. Road Inspectors are monitoring the works to ensure that they comply with relevant roads legislation and the national code of practice for roads reinstatement.
It is intended that other sections of the A970 also reinstated with concrete surfaces will also be replaced with bitmac surfaces before the end of November.
The current reinstatements on the A970 road, including the asphalt areas, are temporary and the top 50mm of the road surface will be replaced with a machine-laid layer across the full lane width in due course. The code of practice specifies that this should ideally be done within a six month period. Given the time of year and the need for suitable weather conditions to lay bitmac, the final reinstatements are likely to be programmed in the Springtime at the earliest.
After earlier discussions with the Roads Service, SSEN confirmed that the use of the carriageway as part of the cable route was the only viable option for this project. SSEN has a statutory right to install public infrastructure, such as cables, in a public road. The Roads Service’s role is to co-ordinate works in order to minimise disruption and to ensure that the reinstatement of the carriageway is as specified by the code of practice.
For clarity, the costs of all the reinstatement works will be borne by SSEN.