Monday February 9th 2026
Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Drew Sandelands
Efforts to cut bus journey times on two key Glasgow streets have taken a step forward with the appointment of consultancy firms.
Glasgow City Council has approved contracts worth a combined £1.52m to help develop bus priority measures on Pollokshaws Road and Paisley Road West.
Jacobs UK will work on the Pollokshaws Road project while Aecom has been awarded the Paisley Road West scheme. However, more funding is needed from Transport Scotland before both packages can be fully delivered.
The plans are part of the Glasgow Bus Partnership programme — made up of eight local councils, bus operators and passenger groups — which aims to address bus travel challenges.
It has identified a “series of bus priority corridors… that aim to reduce journey times on arterial routes by 20%”, a council report stated.
Both contracts will include feasibility and option appraisal, stakeholder and public engagement, technical surveys, preliminary designs and a business case. They will run for 14 months.
The value of the contract for Pollokshaws Road is £639,054. For Paisley Road West, it is £884,531. Both came in under their original budgets, with savings of £261,810 and £176,906 respectively.
There is currently £300,000 available for Pollokshaws Road and £400,000 for Paisley Road West in the financial year 2025/26. The release of the remaining funding is subject to Transport Scotland approving a funding bid.
A break clause has been included to allow work to pause, if needed, until a second phase of funding is available.
At a meeting of the city’s contracts and property committee on Thursday, a council official said a submission has been made to Transport Scotland for additional funding for both packages. He added the council had emphasised they should be a priority for funding in the next financial year.
Cllr Davena Rankin, Labour, asked what would happen to the projects if no further funding was provided. “That would be my concern,” she added. “We get halfway through a piece of work and we either have to finish it, and obviously money is tight on the council, or it just stops.”
The official said: “We’ve tried to maximise as much of the spend as possible. The council is not prepared to put its own capital resources up at risk, that’s why we’ve put the break clause and we’ve advised Transport Scotland of the risks to highlight that they should fund it for the next financial year.”
He said the council was pushing Transport Scotland to have a multi-year approach to funding.
Tweet Share on Facebook
