Revamp of Glasgow train station's entrance step closer
Glasgow City Council has approved awarding £120,000 to Network Rail to develop plans for refurbishment of the façade. It is expected to cost around £3m.
Plans for a complete redevelopment of the station — which would have included new lifts to improve accessibility — were put on hold last year due to a lack of funding.
Installing lifts was estimated to cost around £10m, council leader Susan Aitken said.
Funding for the design work and the wider entrance revamp will come from the Glasgow City Region City Deal, a £1bn infrastructure programme funded by the UK and Scottish governments.
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In October last year, an update on City Deal projects revealed the High Street scheme wasn't going ahead as originally proposed.
At a meeting on Thursday, Cllr Aitken said City Deal sub-projects had been reprofiled due to 'rising costs as a consequence of inflation and a whole number of issues that impacted on the cost of capital projects', including Brexit and war in Ukraine.
'We are not at this point able to completely restore the entirety of the ambition for High Street station, but what we are able to do now is, working with Network Rail, address refurbishment of the facade of the station.'
Transport Scotland previously said it had provided £700,000 towards the development of the scheme, and suggested the council could change the scope to make it more affordable.
A wider City Deal project will see public realm and active travel improvements on High Street under the city's Avenues programme. These are currently being designed.
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Cllr Aitken said the facade revamp is particularly important given this 'significant investment into High Street' as the front of the station 'isn't the most attractive right now'.
A further City Deal grant for construction work is expected in the future.
Cllr Aitken added the removal of Transport Scotland funding was 'a very large part of the reason why the full High Street station project, which would have installed lifts to make it more accessible, has had to be deferred'.
'The installation of the lifts is by far the most costly part of the project, that would be in the region of £10m. The funding that we are talking about for the refurbishment of the facade is closer to £3m.'
She said talks are ongoing with Network Rail over funding. 'We are the instigators of this project, so it is appropriate that City Deal funding is allocated towards it.
'But it is Network Rail's asset and we would expect them to at the very least be in conversation with us about whether further funding might be required at a future stage, and that would be where we would expect them to step up.'
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