Published: Wednesday, 8th April, 2009 12:30pm

Village in need of revamp makes national help list

by Angela Murphy

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BRIDGE OF WEIR has been included in the top ten towns in Scotland in need regeneration.

The area was voted seventh in greatest need of having a centre revamp in a survey ahead of Galston in Ayrshire and Border towns Hawick and Jedburgh.

People logged onto www.helpourhighstreet.com in their thousands, with more than 90 communities being nominated by fed-up residents.

Resident Marjory Bowd, who put forward the village blasted: 'I wish to nominate Bridge of Weir to re-establish it as a traditional village rather than simply a dangerously congested route between Paisley and Johnstone and Port Glasgow and Greenock.

'There is no heart left in the village that was so highly regarded in Victorian times.'

However, Leader of the Renfrewshire Conservative Party, Iain Langlands remained positive about the result of the Tory poll.

He said: 'It is a double-edged sword.It"s nice to know that enough people care about the area to nominate it because it does need help. I hope this will raise the profile of Bridge of Weir because it has been crying out for investment for a long time.

'It is one of the nicer looking villages in Renfrewshire but the Main Street especially is tired looking, and doesn"t attract people to come and visit.'

The Conservative councillor also hopes the survey will encourage the local authority to focus on the regeneration of all its villages.

He added: 'The major towns obviously get more investment because they are more densely populated, but a lot of constituents feel this is often at the expense of the rural areas.'

A £60m scheme for upgrade projects across the county was recently revealed by the Scottish Government, and Conservative leader Annabel Goldie hopes the list will be used to allocate a "significant amount" of that funding.

A Renfrewshire Council spokesperson cofirmed: 'We are currently drawing up plans to improve the town centre at Bridge of Weir. There is money available from the European Union"s Leader fund and the Scottish Government has made £60million available for regenerating smaller town centres. The Council is very keen to access this cash and we"re just waiting fornotification from the Scottish Government about how to apply for it. We"re hopeful Bridge of Weir, along with Renfrewshire"s other smaller town centres, will benefit from this money.'