A contract for upgrades at Paisley’s Hawkhead Cemetery will go before councillors this week – with works expected to begin in May.
Cash has been set aside to overhaul the roads, drainage and kerbs at the Hawkhead Road facility, which campaigners have described as a “massive” step.
Elected members will be asked to give their seal of approval for an agreement – worth a sum of around £230,000 excluding VAT – that would see contractor John McGeady Ltd take on the project.
If they give Renfrewshire Council’s head of corporate governance the green light to award the contract at Thursday’s finance, resources and customer services policy board, the improvements would be carried out in two sections.
The first would likely be from May 1 until June 2 and the second from June 5 until June 30.
Des Barr, who founded the Friends of Hawkhead Cemetery action group, has lobbied the council on the topic of maintenance and repairs for the commemorative site.
He said: “With the way the finances are, the very fact they’ve committed that money, it’s been to tender and could now get approved, is more than welcome.
“We’ve got to give them praise where praise is due and that road and drainage being attended to is massive.
“It’s a big investment and it will mean so much to the cemetery users at the top of that hill, because there’s no road there to be honest. It’s basically a dirt track now.”
While 23 organisations expressed an interest in the project, only seven submitted a tender response by the deadline of Wednesday, February 8.
John McGeady Ltd was considered the most “economically advantageous” of those presented to the local authority, a report to the board said. The deal would be funded from the council’s capital budget.
Despite the boost, Friends of Hawkhead Cemetery remains concerned about the maintenance and day-to-day weeding of areas within the facility.
“The biggest single issue is the paths,” Mr Barr said. “There’s still an awful lot of work that’s required to be done in order to bring the cemetery back up to a standard that would be acceptable.”
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