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Auchenhowie Road, Milngavie, Glasgow (Google Maps)Locals call for “immediate pause” to “completely bonkers” 5-mile cycle lane that will threaten the area’s “unique aesthetic and character”, while raising questions over “need for the bike route”
A residents group in Milngavie, Glasgow has urged East Dunbartonshire Council to put an “immediate pause” to a proposed five-mile cycle lane estimated to cost £5 million, as it has the potential to threaten the “unique aesthetic of the area”, as well as its character, while also raising questions about whether the route is even required to be built in the first place for cyclists.
The cycle lane is planned to be built along the Auchenhowie Road, connecting the A81 in Milngavie to the A803 at Torrance. The road itself is surrounded by acres of woodlands, described as “more than just trees — it’s a finely balanced ecosystem of open grassland and water features”, in a video posted on Facebook by a residents group to raise concerns about the bike lane.
The residents also raised questions about the need for the bike lane, with concerns that no proper assessment of the current use or potential use by cyclists has been undertaken.
Finally, there were also claims that the council’s consultation regarding the bike path, held for a month earlier this year, was not comprehensive and thorough with local residents not being spoken to properly — a claim which the SNP-led East Dunbartonshire Council refutes in a statement shared with road.cc, along with also responding to claims of dealing with the environmental impact.
A Milngavie resident who spoke to Glasgow Live, said: “There are 150 homes along Auchenhowie Road. None of us were approached and neither were the Fairways Association, land management company or the company who own the ground. The consultation has been woeful.”
“We have surveyed thousands of people in the area and no one seems to know about it. It's completely bonkers. This is going to cost at least £5 million and from our assessment that could easily triple that because they haven't put any actual costings. We have experts who are familiar with these types of projects and they have raised serious concerns over it.
“Specialist reports into things like bio-diversity that are needed on projects like this haven't been completed. This is a heritage area so there are parts of the forest that are protected as ancient woodland and they are talking about taking away hundreds of these trees.”
According to the council’s report about the consultation, posters were placed in areas including community centres, Torrance Co-op and Balmore Golf Club, as well as being posted on the council's social media and website. Over the six drop-in sessions, 144 people attended and 306 were surveyed - 54% of these said they 'strongly supported' the plans.
In a letter to councillors, residents slammed the consultation as ‘inadequate’, stating that events had 'minimal advertising’. The letter reads: “The project threatens the unique aesthetic of the area, particularly the historic tree-lined verges along Auchenhowie Road. The removal of mature trees poses a risk to local wildlife, including protected species such as newts, otters, and possible bats.
“This raises concerns about compliance with regulations and local planning policies aimed at protecting biodiversity and natural heritage.”
Residents said they were concerned the project could be used to ‘pave the way for future housing developments’ and put a strain on local services and the character of the area, pointing to similar projects nearby.
It continues: “Infrastructure developments must align with broader spatial planning to avoid negative impacts on community character and service provision. The proposed changes may worsen existing road safety issues. Junctions and access points are known accident hotspots, with a significant percentage of road traffic accidents occurring near them.
“We are pushing for an immediate pause to this project and call for a re-evaluation of the consultation process. We advocate for an extended public consultation period, a revised survey with better advertising, and a community meeting to ensure broader participation. The wider community’s voice must be considered before proceeding.”
However, locals on social media have shared optimistic opinions about the project. Simon Dick wrote: “There was plenty of consultation months ago — online and presentation stands in Milngavie town hall and Torrance... basically a cycle path along the road, seemed low impact and keeps bikes away from cars on a dodgy road.”
Katie Risk said: “The reality is the earth is burning and we need safer travel routes for bikes and walkers so our reliance on cars reduces. I think the issue here, which is fair, is that the above need for safer cycle walking routes is getting overshadowed by East Dunbartonshire Council’s inept project management… If we had a capable council I think more people would be on board with these ideas.”
Meanwhile, the council has also told road.cc about its public consultation period, held between 5 February and 3 March 2024. It said: “Various methods of communication were used to inform residents – including a press release, social media messaging and on-street advertising - to ensure as many people as possible had the opportunity to comment.”
Ann Davie, Chief Executive of East Dunbartonshire Council, said: “Four drop-in sessions were held across the communities on the route where 144 people attended to view the proposals and discuss further with the team.
“A dedicated webpage was created for the project which was viewed over 2,275 times. In total, 306 people provided a survey response with 66% of respondents supporting the overall aims of the project.
“Considering potential impacts on the wider environment and ecology plays a key role within the design development process and various surveys have helped to identify supporting actions the Council and its contractors will be required to follow to mitigate any potential adverse effects.
“The safety of all road users is paramount within the design development process of the project and a Road Safety Audit is delivered at each key stage of the process.
“With any works which take place on existing road infrastructure, disruption and potential delays are issues which are likely and require careful consideration and management. The Council will work closely with its appointed contractors to plan traffic management in such a way as to minimise disruption to the road network and local travel.”
Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after graduating with a masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Wales, and also likes to writes about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.
Latest Comments
- anke2 2 sec ago
That woman is not wrong, these storage hangars are just as ugly as cars....
- Rendel Harris 17 min 31 sec ago
Pretty much all road.cc bike reviews are positive, probably a reflection of the fact that modern bikes generally use the same groupsets and nearly...
- Mybike 6 hours 26 min ago
WTF were they thinking.
- chrisonabike 7 hours 50 min ago
Squirrels - some say they don't like public transport, I think they're just trying to bring humans back in line with the rest of nature and return...
- john_smith 7 hours 50 min ago
Good thing cycling kit generally isn't made of Lycra then.
- Simon E 7 hours 58 min ago
What do you mean by 'fair'?...
- Barraob1 9 hours 51 min ago
Absolute cack. Chasing the more money than sense market
- Rendel Harris 10 hours 11 min ago
That I did not know, thank you!
- bikes 11 hours 17 min ago
What percentage of people complaining here start all their activities with a car journey? Walking the dogs, exercising, shopping, socialising,...
- Rendel Harris 11 hours 26 min ago
Where do you suggest they put the bikes overnight and how could the location be more secure than the shops described above? Also, how could a bike...
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36 comments
If your so concerned about the ecology why don t you buy cars that don t take up the whole road?
I'm really concerned about the Possible Bats. Are they relatives of the Probable Bears or the Mightbe Sharks?
Mess with the retired bank managers and accountants of Milngavie at your peril.
Sounds like it's the Almost Certainly Nimbys which are the real problem.
(Didn't They Mightbe Sharks have some hits in the 90s? )
And the Could've Been King with his Army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres!
I don't remember anyone complaining about a football training ground spoiling the heritage area
Looks like like a beautiful peaceful area. Such a shame someone cut a whole bunch of trees down and ran a road through it!
A bit disingenuous the comment that there are 150 homes along Auchenhowie Road, there isn't. The vast majority sit up off the Road, so a cycle lane won't trouble them.
I wonder those, above, complaining have ever tried cycling on it, not for the faint hearted.
Even when you have considerate drivers, you end up with morons overtaking them and the cyclist whilst driving on the wrong side straight at oncoming traffic..
But hey, speeding and erratic driving is preferred by these nimby clowns.
I'll be fascinated that hear how a cycle lane e is going to "out strain on local services" ....
If the other 305 respondents are as hysterical as Katie Risk I wouldn't take too much notice of their input.
Given the requirement to give cyclists 1.5m when passing what is the point of a cycle lane. Are bicycles travelling so fast that they are being held up by cars? If bicycles are in the locus of the proposed cycle lane cars will have drive around them at 1.5 distance, how would a line on the road closer than 1.5m improve safety?
It may have escaped your notice, but a lot of drivers don't pay attention to their surroundings and prefer instead to use their phones. Also, even if they do happen to notice cyclists in front of them, there's a good chance that they'll try to close-pass them because they either can't judge distance or believe that cyclists shouldn't be on the roads at all (probably readers of the Daily Heil or Torygraph).
It's certainly my experience that more cyclists are held up by queuing drivers, than drivers are held up by cyclists, but the main reason for cycle lanes is to provide a safer environment to encourage people to cycle. Drivers should have learnt to give cyclists and vulnerable road users sufficient space, but it is shocking how unskilled a lot of the drivers actually are, so cycle lanes are needed as the police don't seem interested in removing the worst drivers from our roads.
I'm hoping it's not just a £5 million line on a road. Wouldn't that kind of money get some separation?
Is it still legal to put a crappy line on the road and call it a cycle lane? I was hoping some road design regulations might have been put in place to stop councils or whoever from doing this.
Unfortunately I think you can guess the answers. At best we have some guidelines...
Mention this often but I find it interesting and possibly significant - even in NL they do not have *any* mandatory design requirements AFAIK. Instead the way this works (as I understand it...) is there is a national scientific institute for road safety research (SWOV) and national recommended design manuals eg. the CROW cycling design guide. There are then legal regulations on councils and Highway Authorities around safety and the environment. They can do what they want... but if they mess up and they were *not* using the nationally recommended guidance they'll have a lot of legal justification to do...
I've ridden many times down Auchenhowie Road. Its most notable feature is the cavalcade of twats in fast cars travelling to and from the Rangers training ground.
Me thinks they have more to do with not wanting a cycle lane. God forbid an overpaid football player had to slow down in their Aston Martin
"....cavalcade of twats...."
I'm stealing that.
So we can play (1) "Wait until they hear about motor traffic" and (2) "Build it and they will come".
Isn't the simple solution to this to make the speed limit on the road 20mph (or less). For any schemes where people object to active travel infrastructure, surely the other option would be to reduce the speed limits down to a point where it's safer for active travel on the existing road. If anything this will benefit the local wildlife far more. Can't see the locals going for it somehow though, but the backtracking that would happen would be joyous to watch.
We have experts who are familiar with these types of projects and they have raised serious concerns over it
=We have paid people to say the scheme is a dreadful mistake, and will bring the terror-cycling menace ever closer to our cars. These are truly unpleasant NIMBYs who should be ignored, especially as they are likely to be Duncan-Smith-Johnson-Truss-the one with the comedy toff accent whose name I've forgotten-Tories
Which experts did you ask? "Top people". But who? "Top. People."
Is it not Top. Men. ?
Dammit!
Why should anyone be consulted? Just close the road and it will be better for biodiversity. No more rabbits being flatten by the cars.
Sounds like a lovely area - perhaps the road should be closed for environmental reasons, turning it into a footpath and cycleway. For environmental reasons, as they say.
Local resident it wasn't communicated properly to us - read we had letter from council and binned it.
local resident we have surveyed thousands in the area who didn't know anything - read we spoke to some of the neighbours who also binned their letters. But didn't speak to those who attended the drop in meetings or the 2000 plus who viewed it in the council website!
local residents we are worried about the bio diversity in the area and the impact the cycle lane may have - Read f#*k quick we need an excuse to try and get it stopped also need to look at the heath and safety card to see if we use that one as well?
It is highly possible that a letter was not sent to residents, unless their property actually fronts onto the scheme. Writing individually to residents for every consultation point across the council's operations is hugely expensive and not necessarily very effective.
In a lot of contexts, the requirement for consultation is confined to what is likely to get the message out to those directly affected. To that end, the council should have a policy (or set of policies) on what consultation is required. That should be based on the relevant legislation for the subject matter.
In many cases, the consultation will be based on council web site pages (often encompassing consultation softeware to lodge comments), emails and sometimes postal letters to those who have registered to know what is going on for certain subjects (such as highways, planning, etc), maybe a local newspaper - although that is less relevant these days. It is also likely to be recorded in the minutes of the relevant local government committees, either for wards or areas affected and/or subject committes (Highways Committee; maybe the relevant scrutiny committee).
While risking a HHGTTG-esque response, the plans are available... and not quite as locked away as Arthur Dent found them to be. If people find themselves offended by a lack of contact from the council, perhaps they should take an interest in the first place by monitoring the routine democracy output of their local authority and registering for updates from those services by which they feel most affronted. It is usually there to be found; and if it isn't, then we have a justifiable complaint that it was not publicised.
It's Milngavie - an area famous or the snobbishness of its residents.
I'm sure that description doesn't apply to all, but I think it's fair for many, and no doubt those are the ones complaining the most. They'll be the sort who look down on everything the council does, because they look down on people who work for the council. Their expectation of consultation is an invitation to a personal meeting delivered on a velvet cushion.
But regardless of whether or not the residents think they should have been more (obviously) directly invited to get involved with the consultation - the fact is the consultation existed and if they and their neighbours were that engaged with the community they'd have known about it.
Besides, their complaints are nonsense. They don't want their view of the trees that they enjoy from the comfort of their car being blocked by cyclists. They don't want the disruption - a reasonable thing to not want, but not a reason to scrap the project. And they don't want money being spent on something that doesn't directly benefit them.
What percentage of people complaining here start all their activities with a car journey? Walking the dogs, exercising, shopping, socialising, commuting; everything begins with a car journey and therefore they see only the downsides of a cycle lane. But, who knows, once it's in maybe some will start using it.
I had just such a conversation about a Long-Term Health matter with a gov't official, who informed me that such things pertaining to me were routinely published on their web pages.
Righty-ho then. Every day I'll check every Gov't dept page for anything that might have some relevance to me.
Useless bastard, she was.
It is amazing how many consultations people don't know about until they find out about them.
Never ceases to amaze me how much these projects cost, who's building it? Fat Tony?
If the description of this path connecting the A81 to the A803, via Torrance is correct, then it's going along the Auchenhowie road and then the Balmore road - before going up the Torrance road to the A803 Torrance roundabout.
The A807 Balmore road particularly *badly* needs some kind of protection for cyclists. I don't know what it is about that stretch of road exactly, but it's horrendous for close passing. Many of well-known bike-video youtuber "Magnatom"'s 'greatest hits' are on that road.
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