By Lucy Ashton
The first opening and closing road bridge across the River Clyde has been successfully tested.
The Renfrew Bridge will link Renfrew with Clydebank and Yoker, aiming to provide benefits for communities on both sides of the Clyde.
Operational testing of the bridge was carried out by contractors GRAHAM and work will continue ahead of the official opening later this year.
The project forms part of Renfrewshire Council’s Clyde Waterfront and Renfrew Riverside (CWRR) scheme.
Renfrewshire Council leader Iain Nicolson said: “Thousands of jobs will be, and have been, created through the CWRR project, as well as the opportunity for new homes and investment on the riverside and access to health and leisure for communities on both sides of the river.”
The project is jointly funded by the UK and Scottish Governments through the £1.13 billion Glasgow City Region City Deal, which also involves a projected redevelopment of the Exxon tank farm site and old harbour at Bowling in West Dunbartonshire.
West Dunbartonshire Council has done nothing to take advantage of this big infrastructure improvement. Renfrewshire Council has been busy upgrading roads south of the river while, typically, WDC has sat on its hands. Useless, as ever.
WDC is a backwater that delivers nothing. It’s the way it is. One only need look at the Dumbarton town centre or the bottleneck choke that is the Milton junction to see examples of that.
So where does the money go? Who does the money go? Why is so little delivered? These are good questions that no one asks, or more accurately questions that no one is allowed to ask. Elected councillors that do ask get reprimanded and or suspended.