Work on a road which is to serve 600 new houses being built at near Oban has been condemned.
And the timing couldn’t be worse as Housing Minister Kevin Stewart is due to cut the first sod on the building project at Dunbeg on Monday.
The £1.2million job to improve Kirk Road got underway a year ago as Argyll and Bute Council hailed the “exciting first phase of the Dunbeg masterplan”.
The single track road has been widened and a pavement added to cope with the new development.
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But yesterday the authority confirmed the work has not been completed to an acceptable standard by the contractor.
The main contractor for the work was NRS Group with Breedons being the sub contractor. Neither responded to requests for comment yesterday.
Councillor Roddy McCuish, Policy Lead for Roads and Amenity Services at the council, said: “It is with extreme disappointment and disbelief that I hear this news about this project. I can’t believe that we are at this stage only to find the road is in such a condition that the contractor has got to come back. We expect to get things like this right first time. The people of Dunbeg have suffered enough disruption regarding this road and I can only apologise to them.”
A spokesman for the council said: “A quality inspection of the road surface has been carried out and it has been determined that further work is required to bring it to an acceptable standard. This work will be carried out by our contractor at no additional expense to the council. This will result in some traffic disruption, the details of which will be communicated as they become available.”
Sean MacIntyre, chairman of Dunbeg Community Council, said: “People in the village are not happy. The amount of time the work has taken, and now the road will have to be closed again.”
Bill Harvey, Dunbeg Community Council, said: “The road surface is rubbish. My concern is how it is going to cope with the construction traffic for the new houses.”
Allan Strang, who moved to the village in April, said: “It is a shambles. They were laying tar in the rain before Christmas.”
Initial works took place in January last year with a few breaks in between. The job was due to be complete in December.