AMIDS is the advanced manufacturing district created West of Renfrew and North of Paisley.
Renfrewshire Council have announced a number of new routes to connect to the area.
Most obvious in the change to Inchinnan Road, it’s been curtailed and replaced with a new road to the junction with the former A8.
The area is created through the City Deal for Greater Glasgow.
Along with AMIDS, there are projects with Renfrew Riverside and Clyde Waterfront. The most significant being a bridge over the Clyde intended to be a fixed link instead of the Renfrew Ferry.
Other things are happening like a pathway being created for walking and cycling between Renfrew and Paisley using the alignment of the old railway. The project is through the Scottish Government’s Clyde Mission initiative and was one of 12 selected with funding of nearly £1 Million.
The routing of the former railway goes behind many of the commercial premises that are on Renfrew Road, Paisley and the solum continues under the M8 and toward Renfrew via Knockhill Park.
As can be seen the line was on the right bank of the White Cart Water.
To link with that pathway, new infrastructure to and from the AMIDS area is proposed.
Above plan shows an area from Paisley Town Centre north via Abercorn Street with a bridge and. New road formation linking to Inchinnan Road.
This area is mainly industrial and business premises. There is an existing footbridge that was recently reopened near Paisley Harbour linking to Love Street.
The bridge between Abercorn Street and Carlile Place was out of use for 25 years, it provides a link over the river to Love Street.
A new Road bridge is proposed to cross the river at an angle and connect onto Inchinnan Road, before Glasgow Airport.
Finally, before the bridge over the river another new route has been created to link back to Renfrew Road near the Roundabout where McDonald’s is located.
The thinking behind that is to make the new site for Paisley Grammar School more accessible.
Now, that in itself is a step change as it may direct traffic away from Love Street, which can be busy with traffic between Paisley and Glasgow Airport and may direct non M8 traffic for the airport off the Paisley one-way system roads.
The working of that remains to be seen, but certainly with the bridge and connection from Renfrew Road, it would add to accessibility.
So, what of the Airport Access Project?
It’s subsumed into the wider Clyde Metro proposals although mention made that it could be an initial phase.
The width of Abercorn Street and the former railway together might work as giving road/tramway/footpath/cycle path in the area.
The plan for Abercorn Street shows as far as the viaducts for Paisley Gilmour Street and possibly a connecting section on the wide roadway at Old Sneddon Street might suffice to get to County Square and it’s entrance to the Railway Station.
Possibly a tram could use the proposed angled bridge over the White Cart and the upper section of Inchinnan Road before entering the Glasgow Airport footprint. There may be Roadways that could form a route within the Airport’s one way system to the main car park near the Terminal building.
It’s speculation by me that the Clyde Metro Airport Access Route would use the upgraded roads and bridge and bridge and with a shuttle service, perhaps a single bidirectional track would suffice with passing places if there’s an intermediate stop on route.
We’ll have to wait to see if the AAP is passively provided for within these proposals or not. Certainly running a tramway via Love Street has its issues but there was a former layout that ran up Inchinnan Road in the days of the old Glasgow and District Tramways network and even before that the Paisley and District network.
In 1923, the Paisley and Districts Tramway (in black) was taken over by Glasgow Corporation Tramways (in red)
The point of zooming in is to show that the Abbotsinch section certainly had a tramway, although questionable as to whether GCT operated it after takeover.
The Paisley system did extend out to Johnstone, Renfrew Ferry and Barrhead with the extent of the tramway routes matching Railway connections in some ways.
As for Clyde Metro, it will be a different beast to the former tramway network and it’s very unlikely that any of the former Tramways will be mirrored by Clyde Metro.
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