Helensburgh, Cardross, Dumbarton: Detailed Path Design
Client
Argyll and Bute Council
Sector
Active Travel / Placemaking / Behaviour Change
Location
Helensburgh, Cardross & Dumbarton
Planning Authority
Argyll and Bute with West Dumbartonshire Council
Services Provided
Study Description
Through competitive competition, we led a multi-specialist team to undertake the detailed (stage 3) and technical design (stage 4) of a 9km active travel route linking these coastal communities. The route has been subject to review for over 25 years and following a council political decision in 2024 to Compulsory Purchase the land, Connected Transport Planning was appointed to “just get the design done”.
With limited cycling alternatives available to sharing the A814, the proposed route is highly complex, passing through 15 land owners plots within land that slopes from the A814 to the sea. The route includes a 120m section of coastal defence works, traversing a high-pressure gas main, crossing through an area of SSSI designation. The route is currently envisaged to be formed adjacent to the network rail embankment and utilises the only rail underpass.
The study is ongoing.
Our Approach
This highly complex project has a significant history. Strained relationships combined with 10 years of evolution of design requirements has fatigued agreements. An extensive list of stakeholders has amplified by the limitations of single year funding awarded through competition has limited progress.
With landowner relationships at breaking point, our approach has been to ‘dig deep’ and understand the history of the project with a focus on the most recent stakeholder dialogue. A review of the concept route highlighted serious design deliverability concerns and the limitation of non-invasive survey data, essential to the design progress.
Offering flexibility to work within contract but ‘on-spec’ and keeping the wider team ‘on-standby’ to reduce costs, we managed the gaps in project funding by working between funding awards to ‘reset’ the dialog with landowners, brokering agreements to support essential survey access and a willingness to work collaborative to develop a localised solution, treating landowners as collaborative partners and not obstacles to overcome. See blog post
[ https://connectedtp.com/why-cakes-matter/]
Key Successes
• Managing a multi-specialist team to achieve a single outcome.
• Utilising innovation and real-world experience to create design options .
• Resetting dialogue with key stakeholder.
• Reducing land take and design impacts collaboratively.
• Challenging process to achieve outcomes.
• Offering flexibility to ‘bridge’ funding gaps and achieve wider project outcomes.