Glasgow City Council is backing plans to remove the Woodside Viaducts, opening the door to a major change on a key stretch of the M8 through the north of the city. The issue is set to go before councillors on Thursday, when Scottish Greens councillor Christy Mearns will ask that the city convener write to the new transport secretary urging support for the remove option.
The council’s position matters because the viaducts carry the M8 between Junction 16 at Craighall and Junction 17 at Charing Cross, and taking them out would require part of the motorway to close. Transport Scotland says all through-traffic would then be diverted to the M74 on the south side of Glasgow, a route already running near capacity. That leaves a practical question at the heart of the proposal: how much extra traffic that corridor could take if the M8 were cut back in the north.
Temporary work on the Woodside Viaducts has already dragged on for years and cost £152m, with repairs to the support structures starting in March 2021. Transport Scotland is now consulting on three permanent options: repair the viaducts, replace them entirely or remove them. Officials estimate that removing them would cost less than £125m and take one to two years, while repairing them could cost £125m to £200m and take up to three years. Replacing them would be the most expensive option, at £200m-£500m, and could take up to four years.
The council has long argued that the M8’s construction has detrimentally impacted the urban fabric of nearby communities, damaging city centre placemaking and creating severance between the city centre and localities to its north and west. A council spokesperson said the remove option could be consistent with the authority’s position and that it is ready to work constructively and collaboratively with Transport Scotland to understand the feasibility of the proposal, what alternatives exist and what investment would be needed to unlock transformational benefits.
Transport Scotland acknowledged that removing part of the motorway would likely cause significant disruption, but said it wants to hear from local communities and road users on the permanent solution for the project. That leaves Glasgow with a choice that is no longer just about engineering costs. It is about whether the city accepts short-term upheaval in return for a redesign that officials say could reshape one of its most heavily used transport corridors.
