Funding has been allocated for five new projects to help reduce the impacts of timber transport on communities and improve the transport infrastructure, writes Peter Brown, as well as to support existing projects.
Scottish Forestry has given £2 million, of which £1.1 million will go towards existing projects and £900,000 on new infrastructure work.
The boost for on-going initiatives includes the TimberLINK coastal shipping project, a three-year electric timber lorry trial and a network of Regional Timber Transport officers across Scotland.
Meanwhile the new money will go towards projects for upgrades to existing fragile rural roads, creating passing places or building new in-forest routes to take timber traffic away from people’s homes.
Mairi Gougeon is Scottish governments cabinet secretary for rural affairs, land reform and islands. She said: “Our forests produce around six million tonnes of timber each year. This is a vital part of our green economy which generates over £1.1 billion to Scotland each year and supports around 34,000 jobs.
“It is important that this timber gets to market safely and very importantly, in a way which minimises any impacts on rural communities. This funding aims to achieve this and more.
“In our drive towards Net Zero, I’m looking to promote innovative ways to decarbonise how our timber gets to market in a way that is more environmentally friendly. Using sea routes and exploring the use of electric timber lorries are good examples of this.”
The new projects being funded are £150,535 to Argyll and Bute Council to improve the A819, which will carry almost half a million tonnes of timber over the next decade.
Stirling Council will get £207,835 to improve the C33 at Balquhidder, a narrow, mostly single-track road which will support around a quarter of a million tonnes of timber being transported over the next decade.
Angus Council will have £150,000 to spend on the C27 and C28 roads in the Angus glens, which are currently are not suitable for sustained timber traffic, which is due to increase over the next 10 years.
Barhill Strategic Timber Transport Committee receives £45,000 for its Barhill Timber Haul Route to make sure timber haulage will not need to use the local fragile public road network.
This project will upgrade the Carrick Burn bridge to allow continued use and avoid the impacts of more than a quarter of a million tonnes of timber being extracted over the next decade.
And Tilhill Forestry will have £381,232 at its disposal to ensure the diversion of 100,000 tonnes timber transport from Lagalochan and Loch Avich timber along the C29, C30 & B845, through Dalavich and Kilchrenan, so that timber movements go onto primary routes without using local roads.
The TimberLINK project operates from Argyll using ships instead of timber lorries to move 75,000 tonnes of timber each year to state-of-the-art wood processors in Ayrshire. On average, this service avoids around 4,000 lorry journeys and reduces emissions by 1,700 tonnes per annum.
The three-year electric timber lorry trial (EV Timhaul) is nearing its second year in operation with both companies, James Jones and Sons (Lockerbie) and Scotlog Shipping (Inverness), becoming advocates for fleet electrification.
You can read the latest on that project in the current issue of Transport News (June 2025).
Dr William Clark, Scottish Forestry’s forest transport and innovation advisor, said: “The Strategic Timber Transport Scheme has been reducing the impacts of timber haulage on Scotland’s communities for 25 years.
“Over 600 projects have been supported in this time, reducing the impacts of over 1 billion tonnes of timber transport on communities and the environment”.
All the projects under the Strategic Timber Transport Fund are co-funded by the local authorities or public and private partnerships.
