COUNCILLORS are not to blame for years of delays in the delivery of a protracted cycle path linking Helensburgh and Dumbarton, according to Argyll and Bute’s Provost.

Helensburgh and Lomond South councillor David Kinniburgh branded the project - which was first conceived in the early 2000s - “a total farce” at a recent local authority meeting after it was revealed that the route may not now be fully complete until the spring of 2028.

However, at a meeting of Cardross Community Council earlier this month Cllr Kinniburgh said it is the dedicated officers working on the project who are responsible for its success, or failure - and not elected representatives.

Helensburgh Advertiser: David KinniburghDavid Kinniburgh

Councillors heard recently that a consultation with community groups on the design of one section of the path may be delayed for a third time.

People living in Cardross were first due to be consulted in March, but the exercise was then pushed back until June, and is currently due to take place this month.

Cllr Kinniburgh, who represents the village and is also the Provost of Argyll and Bute, was told by an authority official that it was “absolutely a risk” that the consultation may not take place this month either.

READ MORE: Helensburgh-Dumbarton cycle path scheme 'becoming a total farce' - provost

Cardross Community Councillor, Mike Crowe, told the group's gathering on Monday, September 20: “This has been going on, as David rightly said in the Advertiser, for more than 20 years and yet we’re still talking about designs.

“This is an absolute farce. Someone needs to get a grip of this project and take it through because it’s not happening.

“What we’re looking for now is some kind of assurance that someone is going to take a hold of this thing and not have more and more delays.

“Somebody needs to take it by the scruff of the neck and say ‘I’m going to make sure this is going to happen’.”

Cllr Kinniburgh said: “There is a dedicated officer for it now and he’s the man responsible for it, Colin Young.

“You can see things slipping now, and that’s the point I made at the area committee, things just keep slipping.

“We need to keep on top of it and keep officers responsible to bring it forward in the timescale that they’ve given us.”

READ MORE: Another report, another delay: Helensburgh-Dumbarton cycle path completion pushed back yet again

Resident Lyndsey Young asked Cllr Kinniburgh: “Would it not be best, given the horrendous timeline of this, to have a dedicated project manager assigned to work with Colin Young to progress this?

“The accountability seems to just be getting chucked backwards and forwards.

“I don’t blame you for this entirely, David, but I would love to know who is accountable.”

Cllr Kinniburgh replied: “Councillors are not to blame for this, it’s officers who deliver projects. Councillors can only try to encourage it, move it along and support it.

“With the installation of the bridge [in Cardross, linking Geilston Burn with the railway station], the company responsible there have slipped massively because that was supposed to be in last year and then because of the fish breeding season that put a stop to it, so it’s things like that that have held up the delivery of parts of the cycle path.

“You just couldn’t make it up.”

Cllr Kinniburgh also told Monday’s meeting that there have been so many delays to the cycle path project over the years “that you could write a book about it”.

An online petition launched in December calling for “no further delays” to the project has been signed by 1,840 people. The petition was launched after Dumbarton cyclist Colin McCourt, 40, died in a crash involving a car on the A814 west of Cardross.