A NEW walkway along Dumbarton’s waterfront will be consistent, councillors have been assured – despite four different parties and businesses being expected to help build it.

A council committee heard the project to complete the walkway was not going as smoothly as planned.

Dumbarton FC, Turnberry Homes Ltd, Lidl and Cullross Homes Ltd are all to contribute towards the £1.2 million cost, with about £367,000 coming from taxpayers.

They each have a deadline of December 2019 to finish their portions of the path.

But West Dunbartonshire Council’s infrastructure, regeneration and economic development (IRED) committee was told there were particular challenges with some of the partners, especially with Dumbarton FC.

Jim McAloon, the authority’s head of economic regeneration and development, said the club had had a number of changes in personnel, and said the council had given each of the four parties “the opportunity to build their own part of the walkway to our specifications”.

He said: “It’s not as a straightforward as we thought it might be.”

Council leader Jonathan McColl asked: “How do we make sure the finished project doesn’t look like it’s been piecemeal?”

Mr McAloon replied: “Our advisers will be inspecting to make sure we don’t see four parts – it’ll be absolutely consistent.

“It may be those other three ask us to do it.”

Councillor Lawrence O’Neill said he suspected the issue over the football club’s contribution “was always going to happen”.

He said: “I don’t anticipate any time soon that Dumbarton FC will be in a position to come up with £160,000, or £160, given their current plight and change in management.

“I’m not passing any disparaging comments. It might be worth saying we have money within the capital regeneration fund.”

But Mr McAloon said: “Nobody has said they will not do this. It’s just taking longer to get agreement.

Cllr O’Neill said there was “nowhere else for Dumbarton FC to go within this authority, so there will be a future plan to move off that site”.

Councillor David McBride said he was “quite frustrated the football club are not coming to agreement”.

Again, Mr McAloon insisted: “I’m not complaining about the football club. They are dealing in a very difficult climate.

“We envisaged being much further down the road. This is not about the football club.”

The report to committee on the walkway also said a project at Bowling Basin with Scottish Canals and 75 new homes envisaged was no longer going ahead.

A full £2m was to be contributed by the council, but Mr McAloon said the infrastructure costs for a new canal bridge and other upgrades no longer made the project worthwhile.

He said: “We just can’t make it stack up at this time. It may come back in a couple of years.”