Two community support charities have expressed “anger and frustration” after the sustainable transport charity Sustrans and a local council pulled out of a project that had seen £200,000 spent on it.

Work on The Link, a proposed walking and cycling route between the villages of Neilston and Uplawmoor in East Renfrewshire, Scotland, ended after Sustrans and East Renfrewshire Council withdrew their support for the project.

In a joint statement, community support charities Neilston Development Trust and Uplawmoor Development Trust said the project had been the victim of faulty process but also of a culture that failed to understand the energy and commitment of local people for change in their place.

The project has “hit the buffers” after five years, thousands of hours of volunteer time, and £200,000 of public money, the charities said.

“To use the sporting analogy, the Link was a promising extra who reluctantly had to go when the budget got tight and the coach already had too much on his plate,” the charities said.

The project was funded by Sustrans’ Places for Everyone programme, which is set to close in December.

The charities said they accepted there were severe pressures on local and central government budgets, with implications for capital programming and long-term staffing capacity.

Revenue funding is the poor relation of public finances and it is accepted that there may have been issues with inter-agency processes which are now being addressed, the charities said.

“We also accept that staff changes at ERC may have made proper care of our project more vulnerable to neglect,” the charities said.

“However, we believe it is also reasonable to feel anger and frustration at this outcome for the Link project.

“Put simply, if we had been ‘at the table’, we could have been apprised of basic impediments to the project’s survival much earlier.”

The charities have called for a formal acknowledgment of the shortcomings of  the process and relationship in the project and for urgent thought to be given as to how meaningful collaboration between councils and local agencies can be supported. 

A Sustrans spokesperson said: “Funding previously awarded to support the Neilston to Uplawmoor project was received from our Places for Everyone programme, an active travel infrastructure fund backed by Transport Scotland.

“As communicated to partners in 2024, the Places for Everyone programme will close in December 2025 as Transport Scotland move to a model of awarding funding directly to local authorities through the Active Travel Infrastructure Fund.

“As part of this managed transition, it is now at the discretion of local authorities – in this case, East Renfrewshire Council – to decide whether to progress with existing, community-led projects.”

An East Renfrewshire Council spokesperson said: “We’re unable to take the development of the project forward in its current form due to a number of complex challenges associated with this proposed link.

“A number of active travel links are identified in the council’s Adopted Local Development Plan 2, but remain an aspiration, as we don’t have the resources to progress them at this time.”

Read the development charities’ full statement here.