Owners facing path repair bill
Residents responsible for ‘danger’ walkway
Halfway residents have been told to pay up if they want a path they consider hazardous to be repaired.
Householders in Conan Court have been told it is them who are partly responsible for maintaining the Mill Road Estate path network after hitting out at South Lanarkshire Council for failing to carry out repairs.
Residents say the back path at Conan Court, which leads to the residents car park, is filled with holes and could cause someone to fall and seriously injure themselves.
The council have responsibility for some of the footpaths but the majority fall under the jurisdiction of the Rutherglen and Cambuslang Housing Association.
And they revealed this week that home owners on the estate were preventing work.
Dave Anderson, director of the housing association, said his organisation had attempted to repair the path on several occasions, but was blocked by residents refusing to pay their share of the cost.
Explaining his organisation owns only 48 of the 408 houses within the Mill Road estate, Mr Anderson said: “The responsibility for the maintenance and upgrading of the internal footpaths lies with all the owners in the estate as per their title deeds. Discussions with Halfway Residents’ Association and local councillors have been ongoing regarding this matter for some years but to date there has been no clear commitment from residents to acknowledge responsibility and to pay for the footpaths to be upgraded and repaired.
“The association cannot arrange for the footpaths to be repaired without the prior consent of the owners. The association would be happy to pay its share of the costs but we cannot use our rental income from tenants to subsidise other owners. The last cost estimates we issued to owners was £209,000 but we would envisage that this will have increased since that time.
“There have been some strategic footpaths within the estate that have previously been upgraded and adopted by the council after funding had been received from outside sources through the involvement of the local councillors but at present there is no funding available for the internal footpaths.
“The association is continuing to discuss the matter with the local residents’ association and the local councillor with a view to identifying further funding sources.”
Conan Court resident Agnes Morrison, 83, said the path should have been a strategic route adopted by SLC given it is the only path that leads to the car park.
She said: “I’m not sure they would get everyone in the area to pay that, meanwhile we’re left with a thoroughfare that’s absolutely dangerous. Quite a few people have had falls on that path. What happens if someone has a bad fall? Who is accountable for that. It’s a danger to everyone here.”