NLCC have been contacted by Forest and Land Scotland with regards to work being carried out on the Old Wades Road in Righ Forest and the risks to persons not abiding with safety barries and information. While with the lockdowns it’s understandable there’s the need for exercise, people must be aware that work is continuing and that they are putting their safety and those operating equipment at risk. This area is cordoned off for safety reasons but there have been two incidents recently causing grave concern for safty of the public and we have been asked to pass this on the the local community, this information will also be posted on our FACEBOOK PAGE.
BE SAFE – ABIDE BY SAFETY GUIDANCE AT ALL TIMES
19th November 2020 – information from Forest and Land Scotland
The route of this popular path (Wades Road) runs through the harvesting site and to protect public safety during operations Forestry and Land Scotland have no alternative than to close the walk . We know this can be inconvienent for visitors or locals and to keep forest visitors up to date with activity we have posted explanatory and warning signage on approaches to the site and path network that remains unaffected.
Having heavy machinery on site and trees being felled around the path we have also physically blocked the wades road route with explanatory signage placed on the barriers to keep members of the public safe and prevent unauthorised access during this high risk harvesting activity.
Despite these precautions, we had a safety breach yesterday when two members of the public ignored the signage and barriers to take access to the path fortunately our operatives spotted the walkers and halted procedures until they had passed. They were not in a position to challenge those involved however immediately reported the breach to the FLS site supervisor.
7th January 2021- information from Forest and Land Scotland
The site is going well in an operational sense and we expect to be finished here by April 2021 and thereafter can re-open the wades road path to the public.
However , unfortunately we had a very serious safety breach on site yesterday when a jogger ignored the safety signage and barriers on the site boundaries before appearing out of the trees to rejoin the path and in close proximity to the harvesting machine. She then proceeded to run up the path in front of the stationary machine toward the quarry ! .
The person involved was very lucky the driver spotted her on time and halted the machine, otherwise we could be dealing with a fatality.