A £2m public realm improvement project at a town in Argyll and Bute is entering its second phase.

The contractor for the Oban scheme, Land Engineering, has now developed an outline programme for the work.

Construction work around Oban Bay will begin on 4 January 2016 and is expected to be completed by summer 2016.

The original tender for the contract stipulated a work start in October. However, Land Engineering's civil engineers considered what the work involved and determined it would be better to begin in 2016.

Investigation and pre-planning work may be carried out before the christmas period.

The works involve redeveloping Station Square, including designs for a shared surface, a widened seaside footway, an improved bus shelter for passengers, bespoke seating, ornamental planting, provision for taxis and feature lighting columns incorporating a WiFi repeater station.


The areas of George Street and Queen's Park Place will receive bespoke seating areas, including planting and feature lighting columns incorporating a WiFi repeater station, an improved footway on the seafront, refurbished railings and replacement lighting along the sea wall.

Councillor Roddy McCuish said: "We are delighted to see this project moving forward. After meeting the contractor we can give people the comfort that they are committed to keeping the disruption to an absolute minimum.

"While we cannot foresee exactly how the work will unfold once the workmen are in the ground what we can guarantee is that we will make every effort to keep people informed about the project, with regular weekly updates.

"Local traders can drop into the site office at any time for information and will be given a card with key out-of-hours contact numbers.

"With Stafford street complete, the planning permission in place for the new Oban High School, the Oban Airport business park project underway and now a programme of works agreed for the bigger public realm project these really are exciting times for people in and around Oban."

(LM/MH)