In 1990, a causeway was opened linking Vatersay to Barra, enabling the population fall on Vatersay to be reversed.
Over the years after 1975, a series of improvements had been made to ferry services to offshore Islands had been made, bringing car ferries to Eriskay, Scalpay and Berneray. In 1996 the Sound of Harris car ferry service began, linking Harris directly with North Uist.
In late 1997, the Scalpay Bridge came into use, almost nine months prior to its official opening in September 1998.
December 1998 saw the first crossing by car of the new Berneray Causeway, followed by its formal opening in April 1999.
Construction work on the Eriskay Causeway began in May 2000 and was completed in July 2001.
The first link to be completed was an 82 span South Ford bridge from Benbecula to South Uist, completed in 1942.
This was followed by the pioneering bridge to Great Bernera from Lewis opened in 1953. This was the first prestressed concrete girder road bridge in the UK.
Next came the five-mile North Ford causeway from Benbecula to North Uist, opened in 1960. This remains the longest causeway in the Western Isles.
In 1962 the Baleshare Causeway was opened.
In 1983 a new two-lane causeway was built to replace the South Ford bridge, which was decaying because of damage to the concrete from the sea and wind.
The environmental renewal programme around the Eriskay causeway is showing dramatic results as the reconstituted landscape starts to blend in with its surroundings. Click on pictures to go to environment section.
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drawings by Eriskay Pupils
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Intro
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Archaeology Geology Lost Islands Spinal Route Statistics
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In the previous five years, both Scarp and Taransay had lost their final inhabitants and a few other small islands were to follow. Eriskay's population fell by 70 per cent over the last 70 years and restrictions on ferry services imposed by tides and sandbanks left the island isolated for many hours every day.
This caused enormous problems for pupils coming to and from school, for doctors and other services, and, for instance, made it impossible for islanders to attend parents evenings at the main school in Benbecula because they would have to stay overnight.
Now the causeway has ended all that and plays a major role in the economic and social regeneration of this part of the Western Isles.
The Sound of Barra Integrated Transport project links Eriskay to South Uist with a 1.6 kilometre causeway and provides two ferry terminals, one on Eriskay and the other on Barra, for a vehicle ferry service.
These provide the final links in the chain for the Western Isles Spinal Route, an aspiration which has been progressing towards fulfilment for almost 60 years since the first inter-island link, a bridge between Benbecula and South Uist, was constructed.
Over the years before that, the main transport links were by sea, with only a limited number of tracks and roads, and many islands were isolated for months on end in poor weather. Many outlying islands have lost their people over the past 150 years as the difficulties of living in isolation from the rest of the world grew - but after the creation of the separate council for the Western Isles (Comhairle nan Eilean Siar) in 1975, there was a growing and direct commitment to save the remaining islands.
Otter Resting Place
An otter specialist was called in to monitor a potential otter resting place. If the otters had continued to use this, they would have had to cross the new access road. The old one was filled in under Scottish Executive licence and a new one built on the seaward side of the road
When British Prime Minister Tony Blair stood with his wife Cherie and Mr Donald Dewar, then Secretary of State for Scotland, on the Scalpay Bridge in 1998, he was not only making the first official visit by a serving British Prime Minister to the Western Isles, he was also taking part in a long process of development on the Islands.
The expected completion and final opening of the Eriskay Causeway in 2002 will mark another major step in a process of construction which began nearly 60 years ago. Where the rest of Britain has built motorways and bypasses to supplement existing roads, the islands of the Outer Hebrides have faced the challenge of putting in roads where none existed before, to replace the sea transport that dominated past eras.
The 60 years of fixed link construction have also seen the steady retreat of people from offshore Islands without links, despite the fact that in previous centuries these may have had up to several hundred inhabitants. Among those to lose their populations were the Monach Isles, Scarp and Taransay.
Electricity: The Eriskay causeway carries a new electricity cable. This replaced the two submarine cables previously in use. During the early stages of the causeway construction one of the cables was taken out of use because the causeway crossed over it - and winter back-up for Eriskay was provided by a generator on the island itself.
Water: The causeway also carries a new water main. Work also needed to be done on the Uist shore to connect it to the mains supply. Eriskay has been dependent on a local tank and purifying system for its water.
Walkway: There is no walkway over the causeway and there are cattlegrids to control the movement of animals. However, the precautions taken around the Berneray causeway to stop rabbits from reaching that offshore island are unnecessary for Eriskay as there is no comparable threat to machair land.
Telephone: There was no need for a telephone link across the causeway as communications are already by microwave.
Access: The causeway solved major problems of access to Eriskay for large vehicles - problems which affected the work on the causeway and ferry port project. Although the biggest construction vehicles could be brought from the mainland by standard car ferry to Lochboisdale, a huge barge had to be brought over from the mainland just to move them to Eriskay as required.
