Plans for a free electric shuttle bus in Glasgow city centre are being held up due to lack of cash.

A council meeting heard at this stage the council is “still exploring opportunities for funding” with no money available from the Scottish Government currently.

A council official said the local authority will look for other sources of funding from the government or elsewhere.

A plan to increase public control of buses in Glasgow is also one of a number of other projects where progress has stalled as discussions take place with SPT and Transport Scotland to engage government to attract funding through the Glasgow City Region Bus Partnership.

An update on the projects was presented to Glasgow City Council’s Operational Performance and Delivery Scrutiny Committee.

Committee chair Labour councillor, Soryia Siddique, said the issue of funding opportunities keeps coming up.

A council officer said some funding has been withdrawn for active travel but officials are having conversations about possible money in the future.

City treasurer, Ricky Bell, said: “We seem to have a host of projects we have zero funding for.”

He told the meeting he was concerned about “raising people’s expectations for work that we have no idea how we are going to fund.”

Bell pointed out elected members would be the ones to get it in the neck if the work doesn’t become reality.

A council official said officers are trying to progress projects – and there is money to support work up to various stages of delivery.

He said the council is talking to the Scottish Government to find out the timescales involved to manage expectations and update councillors.

He added: “The likelihood is there will be funding from somewhere within Government because of the commitment to public and low carbon transport.”

Councillor Bell added: “You are obviously having better conversations with the finance secretary than I am about your expectations.”

He said the council is in the community consulting on projects but we are not saying to people this “is pie in the sky”.

The matters were discussed as councillors were briefed on progress on the local authority’s challenge to ‘fight the climate emergency in a just transition to a net zero Glasgow’ with regards to delivering sustainable transport and travel.