Speed cut on Kirkwall to Stromness road a ‘cornerstone’ of world heritage site proposals

A major reduction in the speed limit on Orkney’s busiest road will be needed to get development proposals for the Heart of Neolithic Orkney over the line. 

So says Mark Rinkus, managing director of Connected Transport Planning, which was commissioned by Orkney Islands Council (OIC) earlier this year to look at redeveloping the road and pathway infrastructure around Stenness. 

Current proposals, which are being unveiled to the public this week as part of a series of community engagement sessions, would see six pavement “build outs” placed strategically along the A965 and Brodgar road.

It would also see a reduction in the speed limit to 30mph throughout the village and as far as the crossroads, as well as on the Brodgar road and on the Stoneyhill road. 

The result, it is hoped, would make for easier walking and cycling between the village and parts of the UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of a programme seeking £9.38 million of investment from the Islands Growth Deal. 

Other proposals as part of the joined programme by OIC and Historic Environment Scotland would see an orientation centre for the Heart of Neolithic Orkney built either in the Stenness village or close by on land at Barnhouse. 

A series of visualisations have been developed showing how proposals may change the way traffic is managed on the 1965 near Stenness, as well as on the Brodgar road and the Stoneyhill road, as part of the Orkney World Heritage Site programme.

“The cornerstone is the speeds,” Mr Rinkus told The Orcadian during a drop-in session at the Old Library in Kirkwall on Monday.

“If we can’t get the speed limit to go to 30 to be sensible for the area, for the community and for the people, and for the vulnerable users that are going to be using it, then we generate a problem in terms of needing to go back and have a look at the designs and make changes to them.

“I suspect those changes would generate even bigger questions that would be even harder to answer in terms of ‘what do we do next’.”

Mr Rinkus, whose Falkirk-based firm has subcontracted to Orkney-based consultant Naomi Bremner, believes that the potential development of the road and pathway around Stenness and Brodgar would see the roads renewed for the better.

“It would be a massive investment in everything,” he said. 

“We’ve got biodiversity and net gain targets that will need to be considered, so as well as the scarring that would be made through the disruption of creating the road and the verge and stuff, a lot of that land eventually would return back to landowners with embankment works done. 

“There’s loads of opportunities on those embankments for green meadows and wildlife corridors. So the visual aspect of how it would be habitat-positive as well.”

The reduction in speed limit combined with parts of the A965 at Stenness being moved to single file traffic is predicted to slow down the average journey through that area by 72 seconds. 

Mr Rinkus believes the impact on traffic will be minimal.

“So if I’m coming into Stenness and I’m coming down to 30, then I come to the first build out and there’s no cars coming the other way, then all I’m doing is slowing down to 30 and swinging out and swinging in; next one, swinging out swinging in, and so I would argue that there is zero change in time relative to what it is. 

“During busier times, when there’s maybe traffic coming the other way, yes, then there might be some slowing down to give and take, but that’s when you’re going to get one minute and twelve seconds.

“That road takes 4,300 vehicles a day, the road is designed to take about 16,000. It’s taking about a quarter of what its capacity is, and by comparison of what you would see anywhere else in the UK — because a car is a car and a road is a road — the driver is the same, and at the end of the day, there’s loads of capacity, which is why we think this would work.”

Members of the public are encouraged to give their feedback by getting touch with the programme team on orkneywhs@orkney.gov.uk