Friday May 15th 2026
Woodside Viaduct
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Drew Sandelands
Demolishing part of the M8 in Glasgow city centre presents a “major” regeneration opportunity, the city’s transport chief has said.
Glasgow City Council has told the Scottish Government that it favours the removal of the Woodside Viaducts, where ongoing temporary works are costing up to £150m.
Transport Scotland, the national transport agency, is carrying out consultation on three options for a permanent solution. These are removal, repair or replacement.
Cllr Angus Millar, SNP, the city’s transport convener, said the council’s response to the consultation had offered “support for the remove option”.
Speaking at a full council meeting today (Thursday), he said: “As we have discussed in this chamber previously, the removal of the city centre stretch of the M8 and its replacement with a boulevard-style road presents major regeneration opportunities for Glasgow.”
He added the project would restitch the “centre to surrounding neighbourhoods, healing the scar in our urban fabric caused by the motorway going through the city centre”.
“It is clear that the transport solutions of the 1960s and 70s are not those of the 2030s and beyond,” Cllr Millar added.
The SNP councillor was responding to a question from Bailie Christy Mearns, Greens, who asked him to commit to writing to “the relevant minister once they are appointed to urge them to pursue the ‘remove’ option”.
Removal, predicted to cost £125m, is the cheapest option and is expected to take between one and two years. Repairs could cost up to £200m and last between one and three years.
Replacing the viaducts with a new structure is estimated to cost up to £500m, with the project taking between three and four years.
Cllr Millar said, as Transport Scotland had identified removal as “likely the cheapest option”, it is “an opportune time to seriously consider options to rethink the city centre M8 corridor”.
He added any such change would require “extensive exploratory work, including business case development and transport modelling”.
“The council has advocated for several years that Transport Scotland should take forward this very kind of required work and we will continue to do so,” he said.
Senior council officials have met with Transport Scotland to discuss the project, and a technical workshop on option development was taking place today (Thursday), Cllr Millar said.
Transport Scotland has said the ‘remove’ approach could improve public realm and active travel facilities.
It also acknowledged there would be “significant traffic disruption during demolition” and “significantly increased traffic volumes and longer journey times across the road network are expected after viaduct removal”.
Tweet Share on Facebook
