£3.3m allocated for Lanarkshire transport projects

Apr 30 2009 by John Rowbotham, Hamilton Advertiser

MORE than £3m is to be spent on transport projects in Lanarkshire over the next 12 months.

Cash was allocated by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport to the county’s two councils.

They will spend £3.3m on a variety of projects.

Of the £1.7m earmarked for South Lanarkshire, £300,000 will be spent on road safety improvements and measures to reduce delays and accidents on main roads.

An additional £150,000 will pay for waterproof work on bridges over the Larkhall-to-Milngavie railway line.

And a further £150,000 will fund improvements to bus shelters and stops.

SPT are to spend £100,000 on work to develop part of a national cycle route through South Lanarkshire.

National Cycle Route 74 should create safe cycle travel between Hamilton and Douglas, and the money granted by SPT will be used to build cycle lanes.

£1m of the total set aside for South Lanarkshire will go towards a park-and-ride facility at Carluke Railway Station.

And SPT has also allocated £52,000 to fund the design stage of a proposed extension to the current park-and-ride at Uddingston.

Of the £1.6m allocated to projects in North Lanarkshire, £1.050m will go towards extending the park-and-ride on the M8 at Harthill Services, with plans for about 100 additional spaces.

And £¼m will be spent on a detailed transport plan for the former Ravenscraig site. A £50,000 allocation will fund the design stage of possible junction improvements on the A71 at Horsely Brae, near Wishaw.

Hamilton North and East councillor David McLachlan, vice-chairman of SPT, said the money would be spent by the county’s two councils within the current financial year.