The A8015 is a short link road in Tarbert, at the northern end of Kintyre. It dates to around 1935 when a previously unclassified road was upgraded.
The A8015 in Tarbert
The road starts in the centre of Tarbert at a sharp bend on the A83 and heads east along the harbour side. The south side of the road is at first lined with shops, hotels, cafes and so on, looking out across the pretty harbour, and all catering for the considerable tourist trade that passes through this wee town. Around a bend, it passes the slipway for the Portavadie Ferry and then continues east past the old pier, curving round a small bay to the very end of Pier Road, despite the road quality becoming very poor. The A8015 ends here, at a bench, without even a turning head as there's literally nowhere to go, except a scrambly path over some rocks. Despite the road's inauspicious eastern end the road is definitely still in existence - it is signposted in Tarbert and marked as an A road on most maps.
However, to create some confusion where there wasn't any, the latest edition of Argyll and Bute Council's road list states that the A8015 ends at the old steamer pier, with the UC26 continuing to the bench (this is a different UC26 to the Portavadie Road on the far side of the ferry, as the council in their infinite wisdom restart the numbering of UC roads in each 'area'). To date, this is the only reference found suggesting that the A8015 does not reach the bench, and indeed every map so far located shows the A road right to the end. The council list should be the definitive list, so cannot easily be discounted as erroneous, but it is curious that it has never been picked up by the Ordnance Survey, unless it is a very recent change, but that would have made more sense at the ferry pier than the old steamer pier.
