Engagement approach

Overview

Following the announcement of the preferred route for the permanent, LTS for the A83 Rest and Be Thankful in spring 2023, public exhibitions were held in June 2023 to give local communities and road users the opportunity to see and comment on the LTS preferred route, MTS project progress and understand the challenges at the Rest and Be Thankful.

In March 2024, public engagement events were held to give local communities and road users an update on the design development for the LTS and on the progress towards delivering the MTS.

The purpose of the January 2025 draft Order public exhibitions was to provide local communities, stakeholders and road users the opportunity to view and comment on the draft Orders, including CPO and EIARs for the LTS and MTS schemes.

The statutory consultation period ran from 13 December 2024 to 7 February 2025. During this eight-week consultation period, representations to the draft Orders and EIARs, including objections, could be submitted in writing to Transport Scotland.

A hybrid approach was taken for the draft Order engagement period featuring online virtual exhibitions which were live throughout the statutory consultation period, and in-person events held over five days in January 2025, as noted in section 2.3 below.

Draft Orders

The draft Orders are statutory documents that define the line of the road, associated works and the land required for the schemes.

The draft Orders including CPO and EIAR for both the MTS and the LTS were published on 13 December 2024. This marked the start of the statutory process and the formal eight-week consultation period, which closed on 7 February 2025. The MTS and LTS are standalone schemes and were considered separately in relation to providing formal representations.

In addition to the in-person exhibitions and online virtual exhibition, copies of the draft Orders including CPO and EIAR were also available to view at the following locations, during their normal opening hours, until 7 February 2025:

Lochgilphead Library, Manse Brae, Lochgilphead, PA31 8QX
Aqualibrium, Kinloch Road, Campbeltown, PA28 6EG
Three Villages Hall, Shore Road, Arrochar, G83 7AB
Dunoon Library, 9 Argyll Street, Dunoon, PA23 7HH
Transport Scotland Office, George House, 2nd Floor, 36 North Hanover Street, Glasgow, G1 2AD

Notices of determination were also published in the Argyllshire Advertiser, Campbeltown Courier, Edinburgh Gazette, Helensburgh Advertiser and Oban Times on Friday 13 December and Thursday 19 December 2024.

In-person public exhibitions

There were five in-person public exhibitions held to provide members of the public, local communities, and stakeholders the opportunity to view the engagement materials. Staff from Transport Scotland and AWJV attended the events to answer any queries or discuss details of the schemes.

The in-person public exhibitions were held at:

Victoria Hall, Campbeltown on Wednesday 15 January 2025 (1-7pm)
Lochgilphead Bowling Club on Thursday 16 January 2025 (1- 7pm)
Lochgoilhead Village Hall on Friday 17 January 2025 (1- 6pm)
The Queen’s Hall, Dunoon on Monday 20 January 2025 (1-7pm)
Three Villages Hall, Arrochar on Tuesday 21 January 2025 (1-7pm)

The exhibition room was laid out with a total of 20 information boards, covering the MTS (9 boards) and LTS (11 boards) plus television monitors displaying a visualisation of each scheme. Details of the boards are described in Section 2.5. The room was separated with MTS boards on one side of the room and LTS boards on the other to maintain separation between the two schemes.

Alongside the draft Orders and EIARs, copies of the Scheme Assessment Report for the MTS and the DMRB Stage 3 Report for the LTS were also available to view on a central table at the public exhibition events.

Events were attended by members of the public, local councillors, community councils and local community groups, totalling 330 attendees across the five events. The breakdown of attendees by event is listed below.

Campbeltown – 82 attendees
Lochgilphead – 78 attendees
Lochgoilhead – 56 attendees
Dunoon – 69 attendees
Arrochar – 45 attendees

Virtual exhibition rooms

Two virtual exhibition rooms were set up to ensure anyone unable to attend the in-person public exhibition events was able to view the same materials. One virtual room displayed the information for the MTS and the other virtual room displayed information for the LTS. Both rooms went live on 13 December 2024, several weeks in advance of the first public exhibition in Campbeltown in January 2025, to coincide with the date of publishing draft Orders and EIARs for the MTS and LTS schemes.

The virtual exhibition rooms were hosted on a PinPoint Connect All website and included digital copies of the information boards, the MTS Scheme Assessment Report, the LTS DMRB Stage 3 Assessment Report, MTS and LTS draft Order documents and three-dimensional fly-through visualisations of both schemes. The rooms also contained links to the EIARs for the MTS and LTS schemes.

In total, the virtual exhibition rooms received 1,865 unique (first time) views between 13 December 2024 and 10 February 2025. Once the rooms closed on 10 February 2025, all materials were transferred to the online A83 Story Map, which is described in Section 2.6.

Information boards

A total of 20 A1 size information boards were on display at the public exhibitions. Boards were colour coded to represent the two separate schemes (MTS and LTS) and were displayed on either side of the venues to reflect this.

The content of the MTS information boards covered:

Welcome information
Scheme objectives
Scheme assessment
Design development
Environmental impact assessment
Draft Orders and CPO
Construction
What happens next?

The content of the LTS information boards covered:

Welcome information
Scheme objectives
Scheme assessment
Design development
Car park and sustainable travel
Environmental impact assessment
Draft Orders and CPO
Construction
What happens next?

View information boards displayed at the exhibition events:

Story map

The A83 Story Map is Transport Scotland’s dedicated scheme website which was set up to provide updates on the A83 Rest and Be Thankful project. It is used to promote engagement events and features all the exhibition materials.

Please refer to the A83 Story Map.

Visualisation

To support the public engagement events, three-dimensional fly-through visualisation videos of the proposed LTS and MTS schemes were displayed on large television monitors.

Both visualisations were also hosted on WSP’s YouTube channel, the virtual exhibition rooms, and the A83 Story Map. As of the consultation end date, the MTS visualisation had been viewed 613 times and the LTS visualisation had been viewed 672 times.

Please refer to the MTS visualisation and LTS visualisation.

Promotion

Poster

An A4 colour poster was produced to promote the public exhibitions and the virtual exhibition rooms. The poster was distributed to community buildings and local shops in Campbeltown, Lochgilphead, Lochgoilhead, Dunoon and Arrochar.

Advertisements were placed in local newspapers (in print and online) throughout the consultation period to advertise the public exhibitions. Adverts were placed in the following publications:

Argyllshire Advertiser – Published Friday 13 December 2024
Campbeltown Courier Display – Published Friday 13 December 2024
Oban Times Display - Published Thursday 19 December 2024
Oban Times - Published Thursday 9 January 2025
Argyllshire Advertiser - Published Friday 10 January 2025
Campbeltown Courier - Published Friday 10 January 2025
Dunoon Observer - Published Friday 17 January 2025
Isle of Bute News - Published Friday 17 January 2025

A copy of the advertisements are contained in Appendix D.

Social media

The public exhibitions and virtual exhibition rooms were promoted via Transport Scotland’s social media channels. Information included the dates, locations and timings of the events and links to the A83 Story Map and virtual exhibition rooms.

Emails

Emails were issued on 13 December 2024 to a wide list of stakeholders via the dedicated scheme email address A83@wsp.com to make them aware of the in-person public exhibitions and the virtual exhibition rooms. A further email was issued on 10 January 2025 as a reminder of the upcoming in-person events.

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