u/Crow-Me-A-River

>It comes after the targets for 2025/26 were missed, reportedly due to high construction costs and delays linked to securing consents.

>Officers are being “encouraged not to arrest people”, the head of the Scottish Police Federation has said.

FindOutNow poll commissioned by the National.

>A survey of 1020 Scottish voters aged 16 or over, conducted exclusively for The National, found that 48% of people said they would vote Yes in a second referendum, while 45% said they would vote No.

>With the 7% of people who said they did not know how they would vote removed, the poll found that a second referendum would see Scotland vote to become independent by 52% to 48%.

>The figures are the first from a Find Out Now poll conducted from August 4-10.

This is a project that has been a long time in the making, from the Connectivity Commission in 2017 through to the current Case for Investment process, with the Programme Business Case (PBC) due to be completed in early 2027.

A lot of groundwork has already been laid. Clyde Metro is included in both the National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) as a national development and the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), making it a national transport priority. It has also been reflected in a number of local transport strategies across the Glasgow City Region.

Once the PBC is complete, ministers will need to decide how to take the project forward, deciding things like the route, phasing and funding. Given the scale of the metro plan, with estimates of up to £15B over 30 years, those decisions will be significant.

My concern is that, given the wider fiscal pressures the budget is facing and the UK's track record of delivering major transport infrastructure slowly and at high cost compared with many European countries, the project could end up being diluted, significantly delayed, or even shelved altogether.

Am I being too pessimistic, or do others share that concern?

More info here:

https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/article/2558/Clyde-Metro

https://www.spt.co.uk/about-us/what-we-are-doing/clyde-metro/