§ 50. Mr. Malcolm MacMillanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will ask and assist the county councils of Ross and Cromarty and Inverness to initiate a continuous 10-years' programme of road construction, major reconstruction and modernisation in the west of those counties and in the Western Isles to meet the tourist industry and other development needs of the region, to carry with greater safety and efficiency the rapidly growing road traffic in the north-west Highlands and Islands and to serve the new Western Isles' ferry services, in view of the burden which the proposed rail closures will throw upon the present inadequate one-track road system.
§ Mr. NobleA continuous programme of road reconstruction for the Highlands already exists and I am in regular touch with the county councils of Ross and Cromarty and Inverness about adapting it to the needs to which the Question refers.
§ 51. Mr. Malcolm MacMillanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has studied the proposal made to him by Ross and Cromarty County Council, with a view to transport improvement, the promotion of tourist and other industry and the provision of work on essential schemes in the Isle of Lewis to reduce local unemployment from its current high level, that the council be assisted in starting work forthwith on the schemes in the Isle of Lewis, already proposed, for the construction of a road to link Ness and Tolsta, the major reconstruction of the Pentland road and the bringing up to standard and classification as a trunk road 42W of the road from Butt of Lewis to Rodel: and what decision he has reached.
§ Mr. NobleI am considering the letter which the county council sent me on 25th March about the various subjects mentioned by the hon. Member.