Cycle group is spared
A bid to scrap a council group which supports cycling in Rutherglen and Cambuslang has been stopped.
The decision was made at the first meeting of the new council on Thursday.
A bid to scrap a council group which supports cycling in Rutherglen and Cambuslang has been stopped.
Officers suggested to new elected members the South Lanarkshire Cycling Partnership be discontinued and absorbed into Sustainability Partnership.
But the move was rejected at the first meeting of the full council last week.
The partnership includes members for Camglen Bike Town as well as Sustrans, SPT and Cycling Scotland. It is believed a number of groups and individuals lobbied elected members to vote the proposal down. Conservative group leader Alex Allison moved an amendment to keep the partnership and this was agreed by new council leader, SNP’s John Ross.
Cambuslang Community Council were among the groups who wanted the partnership maintained.
They set up the Cambuslang Cycling Project to take forward initiatives including developing a new woodland cycle path and walkway from Cambuslang Bridge to Dalmarnock Bridge and the Clyde Cycle Park Cambuslang, to create a roadrace cycling track on a site off Bogleshole Road.
Treasurer John Bachtler said: “The partnership has done really valuable work in a short space of time in developing a strategy for cycling in South Lanarkshire, in helping many local cycling initiatives to get off the ground and flourish, and to ensure co-ordination between the different departments in South Lanarkshire Council, national cycling organisations like Cycling Scotland and SUSTRANS, and local projects.
“Abolishing the South Lanarkshire Cycling Partnership would have been a retrograde step, and we are very grateful to the new Cambuslang West councillors, John Bradley, Ann Le Blond and Margaret Walker, and others for ensuring the cycling partnership continues.”
A spokesman for Healthy n Happy, who operate the popular Camglen Bike Town, said: “We have a very good relationship with South Lanarkshire Council and our other partners. We look forward to continuing working with our partners to continue bringing the social, health and environmental benefits of cycling to the residents and communities of Cambuslang and Rutherglen.”
Geraldine McCann, the council’s head of administration and legal services, said officers review decision-making arrangements at the end of a council term. She claimed scrapping the partnership would only be suggested “with strong justification” and added: “In this case, initial feedback was received from community and enterprise resources proposing the cycling partnership be discontinued as they considered essential cycling matters could as effectively be referred to either the resource committee or the sustainable development member/officer working group.
“Having further considered this feedback and discussed it, officers considered that the Sustainability Partnership would be a better fit for the remit and partnership arrangements of such matters, as there were similar objectives.
“It was considered the work of the Cycling Partnership could continue through a widening of the membership and remit of the Sustainability Partnership, leading to the recommendation discussed.”