Talks are to take place in a bid to scrub the controversial Viewforth Link Road from Stirling’s transport strategy.
Stirling Council’s new environment and housing convener has agreed to meet with Stirling West Tory councillor Neil Benny to discuss the move.
Plans for a £2.5million link road through Stirling Council’s Viewforth site were ditched from the council’s budget early last year.
Almost 1700 people had signed an online petition asking the council to axe its proposals and a further petition on the council’s own community engagement platform attracted 566 signatures.
The then joint SNP/Labour administration left the link road out of their 2021/22 budget - blaming the extra financial pressures brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The move was felt to be a major victory for the project’s critics, but some still had concerns that it stopped short of ruling out the potential for the link road plans to be reintroduced in future.
At a full meeting of the council last week, however, new environment and housing convener, Labour councillor Jen Preston, said she would be happy to meet with Councillor Benny.
Councillor Neil Benny said: “The Viewforth Link Road is an unfunded but still present Sword of Damocles that sits over the comunities of both the Kings Park and Braehead areas and there is significant local resistance to that road being built and yet it remains on our Local Transport Strategy.
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“The review is going to take place next Spring and it will take quite a considerable amount of time. I wonder if the convener would agree with me on the need to remove the Viewforth Link Road from the Local Transport Strategy and if she would meet with me and officers to talk about how we can best do that?”
Councillor Preston said: “My own view is that the Viewforth Link Road is not happening, but we need to do this properly through the strategy and I’m happy to meet with you to discuss that in more detail.”
When the VLR was removed from the budget plans in March 2021, the then environment convener, SNP councillor Jim Thomson, said: “The council capital budget always has significant demands each year and - whilst the Viewforth Link Road (VLR) was intended for inclusion this year - the response required to the Covid pandemic must be our top priority at this time.
“We remain committed to providing better walking, cycling and public realm improvements in and around Port Street and council officers are currently working with the public through steering groups and online engagements.”
Objectors, however, wanted firmer assurances that the VLR would be binned once and for all. Green Mid-Scotland and Fife regional MSP Mark Ruskell, who opposed the plans during his time as a Stirling councillor and since, said: “It shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for Stirling Council’s administration to realise the folly of the Viewforth Link Road. The local community has been united in its opposition to the project and the idea of encouraging more traffic into the city centre while we grapple with a climate emergency was always absurd.”
