COUNCIL officials still believe compulsory purchase orders may not be required to complete the long-delayed Dumbarton to Helensburgh cycle path, a meeting heard last week.

Colin Young, strategic transportation delivery officer with Argyll and Bute Council, said factoring in the time needed to complete a compulsory purchase order (CPO) was only a “contingency plan” to enable a timetable to be set for the project.

Helensburgh and Lomond South SNP councillor Math Campbell-Sturgess expressed concern at how long the CPO process could take if it did happen.

The debate took place at a meeting of the council’s Helensburgh and Lomond area committee on June 14.

Unresolved talks over the acquisition of the land needed for the as-yet-unbuilt sections of the route have been a major sticking point for the project, and regular updates on land acquisition have been provided to meetings of the area committee behind closed doors, with the press and public excluded.

Councillor Campbell-Sturgess, said: “I know [the timescale for a CPO] is about two and a half years. Is there any scope to shorten that part, or just get the ball rolling, rather than waiting?

“If we have to wait, then it will take another two years to build the path.”

Mr Young replied: “There was a CPO process in 2015 relating to an old route, which has since been discarded and was never progressed.

“The reason a CPO has been put into the programme is simply to attach a timescale to it.

“If I had left it at ‘land negotiations’, they are open-ended and I could not put a definitive timescale on it.

“The CPO timescale is effectively a worst case scenario. If members were minded to apply for a CPO, and it was opposed by one or more land owners, it could take two and a half years to get through.

“If not, it could be nine months to a year; potentially quicker if owners went for a fully-negotiated settlement.

“The challenge of a CPO is that you have to identify the land as required right from the start of it.

“Once you start the CPO you are locked into the land you identify, and also have to demonstrate that you are not taking any more land.

“You have to show that the public good outweighs the owners’ right to their land.

“We need to complete the design process and identify exactly what land is needed before any CPO process starts.”

Funding for the route was first pledged by the then Scottish Executive in 2001; the current project timetable says the path isn’t likely to be complete until the spring of 2028.