Sound Of Barra Integrated Transport Project
Press Release - 10th October 2000
Eriskay Causeway jobs total nears 70
The total number of people employed on the causeway to the Isle of Eriskay and works associated with the planned car ferry link to Barra has this week risen to almost 70.
The £9.4m project has been under way in the Western Isles since May and is on target to see the rock foundations of the 1.6 kilometre causeway join up in late November. Work has been progressing on the causeway and more than a kilometre of approach roads from both sides of the Eriskay Strait, with around 350,000 tonnes of rock excavated from Eriskay and from a quarry at Glendale in South Uist.
Work is underway to surface the approach road on the Uist side which will also serve the temporary ferry terminal being constructed for use by the present car ferry to Eriskay. This will have its present route cut by the causeway work in the next few weeks.
It is expected that the total workforce, including subcontractors, will reach 68 as the road surfacing work gets under way and around two-thirds of those workers come from the Western Isles.
The chairman of the Transportation Committee at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Councillor Norman A. Macdonald, said that the progress in this major transport project was very welcome as was the boost to local employment which it was providing at present.
Background
Included in the project total cost £9,4 million are ferry terminals on Eriskay and Barra for a vehicle ferry, the last link in north/south communications between the Western Isles. The causeway will carry a two-track road, a new water main and mains electricity replacing the existing underwater cable.
The causeway to Eriskay is the largest civil engineering project of its type under way in the United Kingdom. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar has put £2 million into the project with £4.1 million coming from the Scottish Executive's transportation challenge fund and the rest from European Objective 1 (£2.8 million) and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (£500,000).
The expected completion and final opening of the Eriskay Causeway in 2001/2 will mark another major step in the process of linking up the Western Isles which began 40 years ago.
The first link to be completed was the 82-span South Ford bridge from Benbecula to South Uist, completed in 1942. This was followed by the pioneering bridge to Great Bernera from Lewis opened in 1953. This was the first prestressed concrete girder road bridge in the UK. Next came the five-mile North Ford causeway from Benbecula to North Uist, opened in 1960. This remains the longest causeway in the Western Isles. In 1962 the Baleshare Causeway was opened, linking that island to North Uist. In 1983 a new two-lane causeway was built to replace the South Ford bridge, which was decaying because of damage from the sea and wind. In 1990, a causeway was opened linking Vatersay to Barra, enabling the population fall on Vatersay to be reversed.
Over the years after 1975, a series of improvements were made to ferry services to offshore Islands, bringing car ferries to Eriskay, Scalpay and Berneray. In 1996 the Sound of Harris car ferry service began, linking Harris directly with North Uist. In late 1997, the Scalpay Bridge came into use, almost nine months prior to its official opening in September 1998. December 1998 saw the first crossing by car of the new Berneray Causeway, followed by its formal opening in April 1999.
Nigel Scott
Communications Officer
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
Tel: 01851 709389 (Work)
Tel: 07884 236103 (Mobile)
email: nscott@cne-siar.gov.uk