Transport / Active travel path entirely government funded, meeting hears
REMINDERS have been made that a £21,000 active travel project at the Tesco roundabout in Lerwick is being financed using Scottish Government funding and not council cash.
It comes as a Lerwick community councillor has suggested the project to create a short walking and cycle path was an “atrociously bad waste of money”.
Amanda Hawick added the government was funding it when “budgets are at an all time low”.
Meanwhile Lerwick Community Council chairman Jim Anderson also raised the idea of moving a proposed new pedestrian crossing in the area away from the three-lane section of road.
There is also a bus lay-by due to be constructed next year next to the new path.
Lerwick South councillor John Fraser told a meeting of the community councillor on Monday that there was no cost to the SIC as it is funded by Scottish Government active travel money.
This was also raised at an SIC meeting last week too.
Fraser added that he was told that bus companies felt a new lay-by was a better option than the current stop at the pavement approaching the roundabout from the south.
The Scottish Government is offering a significant amount of active travel funding across the country and a number of other projects are in the pipeline in Shetland.
This includes a feasibility study on a cycle route between Scalloway and Tingwall.
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