City Deal projects including Avenues work to be put on hold due to costs

Several City Deal projects including plans to revamp Glasgow city centre streets are set to be put on hold due to rising costs.

A review of Glasgow’s investment plans has led to proposals to defer some of the city’s Avenues projects — which can include new cycle lanes and work to make streets more attractive.

Schemes at Hope Street, St Enoch’s Square, Glassford Street and John Street are among those set to be delayed.

It is planned due to the impact of inflation on the construction sector in recent years due to factors such as the pandemic, Brexit and war in Ukraine.

The city does expect to get an extra £25m from funding which had been initially set aside for the Glasgow Airport Access Project, as a wider Metro scheme is now being explored instead.

A council spokeswoman said the council has made “significant progress” on projects, like the Govan-Partick bridge, despite “highly challenging conditions”.

But she added inflation and global supply chain issues have caused “higher costs than originally anticipated” preventing other work from being completed within the original budget. Officials will seek alternative funding to allow the postponed projects to progress.

Overall, Glasgow City Council has an almost £386m infrastructure investment programme under the Glasgow City Region City Deal, a £1bn scheme funded by the UK and Scottish Governments.

Use of the extra £25m will need final agreement from both governments. If approval isn’t given, more projects could be deferred.

A decision to drop plans for a promenade and cycle path at Windmillcroft Quay, near the Barclays campus, was taken in May due to “excessively high” costs.

The Avenues projects set to be deferred are: Hope Street; St Vincent Street Phase 2 (Buchanan Street to Newton Street); Cathedral Street and Bath Street East; The Underline Phase 2 (New City Road); St Enoch’s Square – Dixon Street; Glassford Street; John Street; ‘International Financial Services District West’ – Washington Street/McAlpine Street/Carrick Street/Brown Street/Balaclava Street/Crimea Street; Elmbank Street & Elmbank Crescent.

Another scheme expected to be postponed include plans to invest in the road network at junction 19 of the M8.

The City Deal programme faced challenges during the covid pandemic when a “significant number of larger-scale construction contracts” were on site, a council report states.

Extra costs, due to issues such as site closures and working with social distancing, had to be met from the existing funding allocation.

Since 2020, some schemes, like the Govan-Partick bridge, Sighthill bridge and Avenues work on Sauchiehall Street and Argyle Street, have progressed.

The council spokeswoman said: “Despite highly challenging conditions, the council has made significant progress since 2020 to deliver a wide range of City Deal-funded infrastructure projects.

“These include the Govan-Partick bridge across the River Clyde, and the Sighthill bridge which now connects north Glasgow with the city centre.

“Public realm and bridge refurbishment works have also been delivered at Tradeston, whilst construction work is either ongoing or imminent for three new city centre Avenues.

“A number of infrastructure projects have also been delivered through the City Deal backed Metropolitan Glasgow Strategic Drainage Partnership to improve local greenspace and alleviate flood risk.

“However, due to significant inflationary pressures and global supply chain issues, this progress is being achieved at a higher cost than originally anticipated which has unavoidably impacted on the capacity to deliver the remaining City Deal infrastructure projects within the original budget allocation.

“Whilst additional City Deal funding of £25m has been provisionally allocated to Glasgow to relieve some of these pressures, of which £7.92m will be used to support the Avenues programme, a number of projects will be deferred whilst council officers explore alternative funding opportunities and routes for their development and delivery.”

Councillors will be asked to agree to deferring the projects on Thursday, with final approval then needed from the City Region Cabinet.