This is a petition mainly aimed at people in the Greater Glasgow area, but support from any area in the West of Scotland is appreciated!

This petition is aimed at raising awareness from Glasgow Airport itself, Renfrewshire and Glasgow City Councils and the Scottish Government.

Glasgow Airport in Paisley is the main airport in the West of Scotland, with just over 8 million passengers in 2024. Over the last 20 years or so, there have been discussions to bring some sort of rail link to the airport terminal. There have been two main plans to bring this to reality. First of all, in 2006, when the original plans were first proposed with a line being built from Paisley Gilmour Street to the Airport itself, it was cancelled in 2009 due to budget cuts. Then again, in 2016, when a Tram/Train version was proposed and then shelved in 2019, and let's face it, the Clyde Metro plans are progressing at a snail's pace. There are many people in the area, and I feel pretty let down as there are hardly any ground transport links at our local airport apart from a few bus links. Yes, we do have the M8 that goes alongside it. But it can get congested at rush hour times. I'm not going to get into my political views, but we do feel that there has been a lack of effort from both local and national governments to get this project off the ground over the last few years. So we are writing this petition to raise awareness for the support of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link

One of the reasons that we have decided to start this petition now is that this link would be a major piece of infrastructure that would boost the city of Glasgow and the wider Strathclyde Metro Area. More tourists would mean more tax revenues for the region, as well as making it more attractive to businesses. Also, Glasgow's second airport, Prestwick in Ayrshire (passenger count in 2023 was only 524,000), also has a train station. In addition to this, in the last couple of years, Inverness Airport has also got an airport rail station of its own! This is a bit embarrassing when you consider European cities similar in population to Glasgow, like Porto and Lyon, have rail links to their main airports. Another reason is that there is also a mean drop off charge at the airport now, starting at £2 but has now risen to £7 for only 15 minutes, which is absurd in my opinion!

I believe that this is now the time to get up and running for good, this time to stop the airport falling further behind its main rival, Edinburgh, to which Glasgow is losing flights, as the outdated infrastructure at Glasgow means the airlines are either preferring and/or switching over to the Capital. The project would also fall nicely in with the Airport's Masterplan 2040, which also includes potential terminal expansion and the development of the AMIDS area next to the airport. If the airport itself came and said that some of the money from the drop-off and pickup charge goes towards infrastructure improvements, like a new train station, then I believe a lot of travellers who use the airport would get on board with that idea.

Our preferred option for this would be an Integrated hub with an underground Clyde Metro station with a ScotRail link similar to the 2000s plans, but potentially a new track after Paisley St James' for as little disruption to the local area as possible. The Clyde Metro plans have taken priority now, but if Glasgow Crossrail becomes a reality, a Scotrail connection might be worth looking at again. But a tram connecting Renfrew and Breahead could be possible too.

To finish this off, if a Glasgow Airport Rail Link were built, it would make the airport more accessible for non-drivers, better connectivity for the South West of Scotland, more attractive for future airlines, and in general bring the airport more up to date. I do believe that a passenger count of 7 figures would use it every year to get to and from Glasgow Airport. In my opinion, there are more benefits than downsides to this project. We need to build this Sooner Rather Than Later!

If you sign this petition for the rail link, feel free to share it with your family and friends. I'll be getting in touch with local campaigners and potentially local politicians in due course. I'm not getting into political views; this is an idea that a lot of people can get behind, regardless. Thanks for all the support!!!

OUR WEBSITE: https://www.garl2campaign.org/

Any Enquires linkglawithrail@outlook.com

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