Plans for East Kilbride masterplan given the final go-ahead

Councillors on the executive committee approved the £62.2 million proposals which will see two key projects aimed at improving the town centre.

The two projects include converting Centre West Shopping Center into a housing development and changing elements of the Stewartfield Way City Deal project.

The council will take ownership of Centre West Shopping Centre to turn it into a new neighbourhood in the heart of the town.

The plans follow public consultation which identified residential development as the preferred use of the site.

The change to the Stewartfield Way project will see an expansion of the town centre.

Plans will be split into two parts, one delivering improvements to transportation infrastructure in East Kilbride and the other phase will take forward initial works for the redevelopment of the town centre.

Council Leader and East Kilbride Central North councillor, Joe Fagan, praised the plans.

He said: “I’m very keen to see the investment at Kingsgate because I think there’s an issue which is that Kingsgate is becoming the facto retail centre for East Kilbride because of the issues in the town centre and I think we have the opportunity to create a town centre that is much more in keeping with the concept of the 20-minute neighbourhood, with the community wealth-building projects.”

Although the plans were welcomed by councillors on the committee, Green councillor Kirsten Robb (East Kilbride East) raised concerns about the influx of traffic that will come with road expansions as part of the Stewartfield Way project, and she proposed to amend plans.

She said: “I want to make a few points about the dualling aspect of Stewartfield Way proposals.

"While I do see the value and I approve of the East Kilbride town centre proposals, I have questions and points to make about the dualling aspect of the Stewartfield Way project, £30 million is a lot of money, it doesn’t come along every day.

"We hear all the time how money is tight and all of us have a responsibility to ensure we get the maximum bang for our buck for the public money and do no harm. 

“Today, we elected members have a choice, the administration who pledges to ratchet up climate and community wealth building action have a choice, the council who have a duty to act to contribute to emissions reductions has a choice, supporters of the Scottish Government who pledge to reduce road miles travelled by 2030 have a choice, anyone who wants to have a liveable planet must make the right choice today. 

“So, do we approve this potentially high carbon road expansion project without the information we have to assess its climate impact, and by the way environmental impact assessments don’t take carbon emissions into account, or do we get the information we need to make informed decisions whilst also taking forward the many projects on our books that we know will address climate change, reduce poverty and build community wealth?

"The project has been changed and it can be changed again.

“I choose the latter, and propose an amendment today as follows: In recognition of the council’s duty to act in a way that contributes to Scotland’s emissions reductions, the council decides to postpone the decision in Stewartfield Way and for officers to bring back to elected members the following information to inform future decision making.

"One – a climate impact assessment of the Stewartfield Way proposals, two – removal of any project element which increases climate-damaging emissions directly in contradiction to the council’s own aims to reduce emissions and three – proposals to use the remaining city deal funding for projects that are low carbon, address poverty and build community wealth instead.”

The amendment did not receive support from councillors and plans were approved unchanged.

Councillor Mark McGeever (Hamilton West and Earnock), said: “I think it is important to make the point that this particular project has been considered now for over nine years and it’s been through various changes.

"It has been overseen the council under three separate administrations and I think in my years, there’s probably been fewer issues discussed quite as much or scrutinised quite as much.

“I think personally from looking at climate change and its sustainability impact, that area of East Kilbride is quite poorly served by public transport as it stands, the bus system is not great there and the potential for bringing in new transport links to there will only get worse in my opinion, if we got to the stage of gridlock which is something I know was feared if there was no change to the road network at that bit, I would hope that by looking now to progress with the project we’ll get to the point where the bottleneck around Kingsgate is alleviated, we have managed to protect the James Hamilton Retail Park and the nature reserve that is there and hopefully it will create more opportunities for bus use and the need for active travel in that area.”