Kilsyth town centre works ‘not good enough’

That was the view of certain members of the public who attended last week’s Kilsyth Community Council meeting.

Several traders from the Main Street were unhappy that the works had run considerably over their original completion date, and they made their feelings clear to Andrew Furness, landscape architect, and Michael Kordas, planning assistant, from North Lanarkshire Council, who took questions at the meeting.

John Rennie, local baker, said: “Every day that they [the builders] are here it disrupts people shopping in the Main Street. It’s a disgrace and the it’s the Main Street that suffers.”

David Cant, a Main Street shop owner said: “It’s the council’s fault for the way they let people treat this town. I’ll be glad to see these people out of here.”

However, one member of the community council did add: “I disagree with a lot of the comments that have been made. The designs are artistic. It looks better.”

Community council chairman, Scott Johnson said: “A lot of the work is still incomplete, but I don’t think it is too terrible. The signage is good.

“They over-ran by some time and given there was no weather disruption or any other type of disruption it is disappointing. If the program of works was longer, that wouldn’t have happened.

“There’s no way of clawing back the time now but, if the contractor takes on a programme they should be able to carry out the work.

“Normally there’s liquidated damages and there’s a financial penalty for every day you run over your target, but that’s up to NLC and the contractors if they want to do that.”

Landscape architect, Andrew Furness tried to explain the delay in the works.

He said: “The contractor underestimated the time it would take and the sub-contractor let them down. They moved to another job half way through – that’s a reason for part of it.”