West Lothian town has second chance to debate controversial new …

Bathgate ^[1] Community Council has organised a meeting to debate controversial plans to drive a bypass road through the Bathgate Hills.

The council found itself besieged by criticism when it tabled the blueprint of local councillor Willie Boyle at its last meeting.

And the council now hopes to give critics a voice, denied at the regular monthly meeting, to air their concerns.

This new meeting- in Bathgate’s Jim Walker Partnership Centre ^[4] this Friday night between 6.30pm and 8pm- will be strictly controlled to allow speakers time as well as questions from the floor.

Bathgate resident Lynn Rennie had collected more than 1,200 signatures against the proposal and was invited to this month’s regular meeting of the community council.

She’d had only five minutes to speak to the petition before the meeting had to close.

Mrs Rennie has been promised 15 minutes to speak to her petition on Friday.

There will also be time allotted to explain Place Plans- the new community input element in the planning process- and a response from the community council to this proposal.

An agenda for the meeting- in the South Bridge Street centre- stresses: “To allow as many people as possible to express their views we will provide a maximum time of five minutes per question together with the subsequent answer.”

The agenda acknowledged the mistakes of the last meeting adding: “The Community Council would like to take this opportunity to apologise for the behaviour of some members. We recognise that it fell well below the standards and code of conduct expected.”

The plan drawn up by Councillor Boyle suggests that a bypass could run through the Bathgate Hills to the north of the town to alleviate traffic congestion in the town centre.

He stressed that road plans, along with other development suggestions contained in the document were his ideas, drawn up to kick start a debate about how Bathgate could develop in the future. ” Doing nothing is not an option “, he told the last meeting of the community council.

However it is Councillor Boyle’s authorship, and the tone of the proposals outlined in a lengthy and official looking document, that had many believing it was West Lothian Council policy.

Councillor Boyle stressed at the earlier community council meeting that it had nothing to do with West Lothian policies or plans and was merely his own opinions.

Some critics have suggested that the connection many have drawn is obvious given Councillor Boyle’s years as a councillor for the town. He was also a member of the community council before election to West Lothian Council.

But while many fear his bypass plan is, or will become, a road map for the future, it remains no more than a proposal. One which would cost millions.

As many have pointed out that it will never happen given the constraints on public spending and the reluctance of house builders to finance infrastructure development.

Fellow councillor in the town, Labour’s Harry Cartmill expressed his opposition to the idea before it was tabled at the community council earlier this month.

He summed it up then : “I’m 100 percent opposed to this plan – from my research the road alone would cost an eye-watering £80 million to construct.”

“My objections are many – but principally – environmental destruction , desecration of valuable historic sites, loss of business to Bathgate Town Centre as our town is bypassed daily – basically the loss of an area generations of Bathgate Bairns have treasured.”

References

^{^} Bathgate (www.edinburghlive.co.uk)
^{^} Rare Edinburgh photos take us inside lost city centre railway station (www.edinburghlive.co.uk)
^{^} Group of holidaymakers fume as they arrive at hotel in Turkey and told ‘go away’ (www.edinburghlive.co.uk)
^{^} Jim Walker Partnership Centre (www.edinburghlive.co.uk)
^{^} Edinburgh Live (data.reachplc.com)