A levelling up funding award for one of Glasgow's most socio-economically deprived areas has received mixed reaction and allegations of council officers cherry picking "pet projects".
Glasgow City Council has been awarded nearly £15 million for the regeneration of Drumchapel town centre, bringing new walking and cycling routes and work to tackle flooding.
While the cash injection has been warmly welcomed by the leader of the council, local politician has expressed frustration that other projects have missed out on a share of the Westminster funding pot.
Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, said of the £14,979,646 award: “The success of this bid is testament to the hard work of officers, local members and the whole community – and their ambition for Drumchapel.
READ MORE: Mystery of Glasgow's missing historic lampposts has been solved
"I’m confident the project will secure real economic, environmental and social benefits by delivering enhanced community facilities, better connected local shops and services, and enable new housing and greenspace."
It is a further chance at success for the city, which missed out on funding for two other projects at the last round of levelling up allocation.
Level up funding - which was created to replace the EU’s structural funds and is allocated by Michael Gove's department - has long been criticised by the Scottish Government as it does not allow for ministers in Edinburgh to have any say or influence on how the money is spent.
The latest funding comes on top of £343m already allocated to Scotland in previous rounds, meaning Scotland has received £465m.
Labour MSP Paul Sweeney said the Glasgow funding was undoubtedly good news for Drumchapel but was far from being a "top priority" for the city.
Mr Sweeney had previously thrown his weight behind a funding bid to renovate Springburn Winter Gardens, an A-listed glasshouse that has lain derelict for four decades.
He said: "Whilst this is good news for Drumchapel, if we take a Glasgow-wide view I don't think it's the top priority for capital investment in the city and it's deeply disappointing that there's been minimal consultation with parliamentary representatives about what's the best investment for Glasgow.
"We've just had a rehash of an already problematic round two, which saw council officers foist their pet projects onto elected members rather than allowing communities and elected members with a mandate from the people to determine what the city should be investing in."
Mr Sweeney pointed to plans for a "Boulevard Project" that would have converted a motorway flyover to a boulevard and seen repairs carried out to a structurally unsound bridge.
The MSP added: "Why was that not a higher priority given the environmental improvements for the area next to the country's largest hospital?"
He said the choice of funding allocation by the UK government seemed "haphazard" and had missed Glasgow's main priorities.
Mr Sweeney added: "Springburn Winter Gardens, the city's A-listed glasshouse that's been derelict for 40 years this year, in an area like Springburn that's had minimal capital investment for at least 20 years would have been more deserving, as well as the People's Palace, which has been a long-running major concern for the city.
"That was a levelling-up nomination project - why wasn't that financed?
"It just seems peculiar. It almost feels like a haphazardly-selected project.
"Any investment in Glasgow is great.
READ MORE: Allotments are heaven but they won't solve society's ills
"I'm not saying it's a bad thing - I should emphasise that - but if you're going to take a wider view of the city's overall priorities, it doesn't seem like it's a number one priority for £15m of capital investment right now."
Mr Sweeney's criticism with regards Springburn Winter Gardens is levelled at the council's SNP administration, which blocked an attempt by Springburn Winter Gardens Trust, which the Labour politician leads, to apply for levelling up money.
The council is in charge of deciding which projects go forward to the bidding process - a process that is highly costly for local authorities.
At a previous round of levelling up funding, Glasgow City Council was awarded £13m for the restoration of stables in Pollok Park.
The council previously said the decision not to support the Springburn plans was made by its officers during an evaluation of the proposals before this was agreed by its city administration committee.
The council can submit up to seven bids — one per constituency — as well as one large-scale transportation project.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here