Machrie Slipway

The residents’ viewpoint.

It is with great concern that Machrie residents learned of the Forestry Commissions proposals for timber haulage, a stacking area and slipway to be built in the village.

As we understand timber, primarily from Kilpatrick, the Clachan and some Machrie forests would be brought over to Machrie via the Machrie Moor from the square pillar box to the existing forestry track near Gate Cottage. The forestry track would be extended and the lorries would then come back onto the Machrie moor between House of Machrie and the golf course cattle grid. They would then travel to the stacking area in the field between Weir’s garage and the Schoolhouse. A new slipway would be built opposite the stacking area and the logs would go off from there, transported across the shore road, to a landing craft type ship. It is thought that this would continue for at least 10 years, however we believe that the forestry are behind their extraction targets so it may be for longer than that.

Our concerns are:

• The unclassified moor road is already sign posted as “unsuitable for coaches” at one end and “unsuitable for long vehicles” at the other end. How this makes the road suitable for large articulated log trucks in addition to existing traffic is not clear.
• The Machrie moor is largely built on peat and is likely to deteriorate quite quickly with heavy traffic.
• The Forestry Commission, (through a Timber Fund) contributed approximately 40% of the last String Road improvements, they now say that they will no longer fund String Road works as they will not use the String. NAC say that because of this they cannot afford any further major string road improvements. This affects everybody, locals and tourists.
• A 300 metre long log storage area is not in keeping with Machrie, it is a tranquil beautiful place not a commercial or industrial site. This has a knock on effect with tourism.
• There are lots of nesting birds along the cliffs and less able tourists come here to bird watch, this would be all disrupted.
• For the logs to get to the jetty would mean 5 tonnes at a time crossing a main road. One boat takes 750 tonnes resulting in 150 crossings with timber and 150 crossings back = 300 times. This is the only site that timber has to cross a main road and would probably result in the need for traffic lights. This will seriously affect tourism, bus timetables and local life.
• People from the other side of the island will be put off coming to businesses in Machrie in fear of meeting log lorries on the moor road and getting held up with traffic lights.
• Money would have to be spent on big passing places on the Machrie moor as well as another part of the forestry road. If they continued to use the String Road they would only add approximately 3 miles extra on to their journey. Surely funding some more string road works and taking the logs to market road in Brodick, which is already a recognised commercial site, makes more sense. The forestry say their reasoning is to “minimise use of the string road and Brodick timber traffic”.

These concerns, however, do not just affect Machrie residents, it is clear that it is of island wide concern. I have already had 1 phone call from a regular visitor asking when felling will begin. If it is before June he intends to holiday elsewhere! This clearly affects the whole island economy and tourist trade. With RET expected to increase traffic 30-40% how will something like this help? There are alternatives available which would have minimal disruption, we urge all islanders and holiday makers to support us in trying to stop this going ahead.

The sentiments expressed in the Arran Banner Editorial on Feb 14th are very sensible …. Logging activities will be a fact of life on Arran for many years to come, but there is insufficient information as yet to make any meaningful decisions about the Machrie site (or any of the others suggested) as compared to the existing ones at Brodick and Sannox.

For instance:

• What are the comparative capital and running costs?
• Where is the environmental impact assessment?
• What are the road safety implications?
• What is the impact on tourism and jobs?

The general public need to be involved in identifying these sorts of key issues, then assist in prioritising/ranking them so that any options proposed by the Forestry Commission can be tested against these agreed criteria. Use of an independent facilitator would seem to be a sensible way forward.