GLASGOW. Riverside Museum entrance, 100 Pointhouse Place, Glasgow G3 8RS
UK Government Minister for Scotland, Kirsty McNeil, Tom Arthur, Scottish Government Minister for Employment and Investment, and Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council at the opening of the new bridge.
The formal opening of the Govan-Partick Bridge sees Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, Tom Arthur, Scottish Government Minister for Employment and Investment, and UK Government Minister for Scotland, Kirsty McNeil, joined by two pupils from each of the local Notre Dame and Riverside primary schools. Emily MacLennan (cardigan), Jak Smith (blue), Erin Orr and Murdo MacLeod.
The Govan - Partick Bridge, a £29.5million Glasgow City Region City Deal project - funded by the Scottish and UK Governments - will re-establish the historic connection between Govan and Partick, with the bridge crossing between Water Row on the south side and Pointhouse Quay on the north.
The bridge is significant economically, environmentally and socially through the link it will provide not only between communities, but also a number of visitor attractions and institutions of national economic importance. The crossing is also a central part of the active travel route between the University of Glasgow’s campus at Gilmorehill and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
This is one of the longest opening pedestrian/cycle bridges in Europe, with a width of six metres and two spans - the moving span, which weighs 650 tonnes, is 99 metres long and uses the South Pier (at Water Row) as its access; and the fixed span, which weighs 45 tonnes and is 15.7 metres long.
Following the formal opening of the bridge, the bridge will open to the public on the morning of 7 September and there will be celebratory community events on both banks of the Clyde that weekend - the Clydebuilt Festival will take place on the north bank on 7 and 8 September beside the Riverside Museum, with the Footbridge Festival on the south bank at Water Row, Govan Cross and Govan Road, on 7 September.
The Glasgow City Region City Deal will see both the Scottish and UK Governments each provide £500million of funding for infrastructure projects.
UK Government Minister for Scotland, Kirsty McNeil, Tom Arthur, Scottish Government Minister for Employment and Investment, and Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council at the opening of the new bridge.
The formal opening of the Govan-Partick Bridge sees Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, Tom Arthur, Scottish Government Minister for Employment and Investment, and UK Government Minister for Scotland, Kirsty McNeil, joined by two pupils from each of the local Notre Dame and Riverside primary schools. Emily MacLennan (cardigan), Jak Smith (blue), Erin Orr and Murdo MacLeod.
The Govan - Partick Bridge, a £29.5million Glasgow City Region City Deal project - funded by the Scottish and UK Governments - will re-establish the historic connection between Govan and Partick, with the bridge crossing between Water Row on the south side and Pointhouse Quay on the north.
The bridge is significant economically, environmentally and socially through the link it will provide not only between communities, but also a number of visitor attractions and institutions of national economic importance. The crossing is also a central part of the active travel route between the University of Glasgow’s campus at Gilmorehill and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
This is one of the longest opening pedestrian/cycle bridges in Europe, with a width of six metres and two spans - the moving span, which weighs 650 tonnes, is 99 metres long and uses the South Pier (at Water Row) as its access; and the fixed span, which weighs 45 tonnes and is 15.7 metres long.
Following the formal opening of the bridge, the bridge will open to the public on the morning of 7 September and there will be celebratory community events on both banks of the Clyde that weekend - the Clydebuilt Festival will take place on the north bank on 7 and 8 September beside the Riverside Museum, with the Footbridge Festival on the south bank at Water Row, Govan Cross and Govan Road, on 7 September.
The Glasgow City Region City Deal will see both the Scottish and UK Governments each provide £500million of funding for infrastructure projects.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm Alistair Dalton, the Scotsman's Transport Correspondent at Scotland's newest bridge.
00:06It's a nearly 30 million pound crossing over the Clyde between Govan and Partick beside
00:13the Riverside Museum behind me.
00:15The design of the bridge is cable-stayed and it's a little reminiscent of part of the Queensferry
00:19Crossing but the inspiration has actually come from the cranes of shipyards which used
00:26to line the Clyde around this area.
00:29The bridge is one of the longest in Europe carrying pedestrians and cyclists that's opened
00:35to river traffic.
00:37It's more than 100 metres long and it will officially open for the first time on Saturday.
00:42It takes about three minutes to swing horizontally to let river traffic through.
00:49And some of those boats coming through in the future will include the veteran paddle
00:55steamer Waverley based in Glasgow and which was built at the shipyard which stood on the
01:02site of the Riverside Museum.
01:04Well this bridge reconnects Govan to the north of the river and vice versa for the first
01:10time in decades.
01:12Historically there was always a crossing over the Clyde connecting Govan to the rest of
01:18the city but for a long time there hasn't been really since the last ferry stopped.
01:23And in some ways Govan has been a wee bit cut off, a wee bit isolated and this bridge
01:27will change all of that.
01:30It doesn't just reconnect Govan, most importantly it reconnects people and the school children
01:37who've joined us at the bridge today are kind of symbolic of that.
01:40Kids from the Govan side and kids from the York Hill and Partick side have met in the
01:44middle of the bridge.
01:46These are opportunities that didn't exist before and in actual fact the Riverside Museum
01:51behind us, when I was there recently the staff there told me that when they do a count
01:57of the visitors from different places but particularly from within the city, actually
02:02the ward in the city that has the fewest visitors to the Riverside Museum is Govan.
02:07Even though it is absolutely, you can see it, you can almost reach out and touch it,
02:14there was that disconnection, all of that will change and Govan is now back in many
02:20ways as it should always have been as one of Glasgow's most important neighbourhoods
02:25right at the heart of the city again.
02:26Now the bridge is just for people walking, wheeling and cycling, so what benefit could
02:31that be to encouraging more people for active travel, particularly cycling?
02:35Well we're seeing it already in Glasgow, there is definitely an element of if you build it
02:39they will come.
02:41In the past, even just the past five years but definitely the past decade, Glasgow's
02:45transformed as a cycling city and it's because we've invested in high quality cycling infrastructure.
02:52So I think this is going to be very very well used, we've seen it already with the bridge
02:57that we opened last year that connects Sight Hill in the north of the city back to the
03:02city centre again, it has been really well used by people walking and cycling and what
03:08it does is demonstrate that actually you don't have to use your car in order to get places,
03:16if we build the connections then people will use those connections in an active way and
03:22so I think it's one of the most exciting things about it that the kids that are here today
03:28will be able to get on their bikes and get out and enjoy different parts of the city
03:31that otherwise they wouldn't have been able to access.
03:33And it's a new city landmark, could this be an attraction in its own right?
03:39I think it will be yes and I think that it's going to be potentially a real game changer
03:43for Govan, we have a little bit further in Govan around the Queen Elizabeth University
03:50Hospital, the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District that the University of Glasgow is
03:56creating and that will actually create, the bridge creates an innovation district that
04:03spans the river from what we know of as the University of Glasgow campus to what will
04:08now be a much bigger University of Glasgow campus. We've already seen from our city centre
04:14innovation district around the University of Strathclyde that that is a real game changer
04:18for jobs, for investment, for Glasgow becoming a real innovation capital. We regularly now
04:26are ranked among the top ten most innovative cities in the world and that Govan is now
04:32going to be at the heart of that as well, so it's about new jobs, new opportunities
04:37for local people. Govan still has deeply embedded poverty and high levels of multiple deprivation
04:45and for me this has always been not just about how you get from one side of the river to
04:51another, it is, without being a bit cheesy, it's a bridge to something else, it's a bridge
04:57to better lives for people, better opportunities for people and better places as well. I think
05:03it will make Govan a better place. These new homes that are just over here in Water Row
05:09are part of the same city deal investment and they are going to be among the most highly
05:16sought after homes in the city now. Talk about brilliantly connected with spectacular views,
05:22that's a transformation for Govan. Only a couple of years ago that was long-standing
05:26vacant and derelict land and look at it now. So we're already seeing the impact that it's
05:31making and I think that will continue for many years to come.