Having written extensively on the Scottish Event Campus over the years, there has never been any doubt about the merits of its ambitions for another major expansion.

And the huge benefits of this to the Glasgow and broader Scottish economy have also been crystal clear.

The proposals drawn up under previous chief executive Peter Duthie were eminently sensible but the public funding required to kick-start these plans did not come through and they were left sitting on the shelf.

This could be viewed as surprising on the basis of a cold analysis, when you look at the figures cited by Mr Duthie on the tax benefits estimated to flow to the Scottish and UK governments as a result of the boost to activity from the proposed investment.

However, given how straitened the public finances have been since the global financial crisis, with difficulties compounded hugely by the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, the challenge of attracting Scottish and UK government funding appears to have just been too great. It looks very much to have been a case of the right sort of plan at the wrong time.

The Scottish Event Campus, under new chief executive Dominic McKay, has now, as revealed exclusively by The Herald yesterday, come forward with a plan that aims to harness private funding to get major expansion plans going.

Mr McKay characterises these new proposals as having been drawn up on a “clean slate”.

Major development of the west side of the campus is at the heart of the plans and there is a big shift to targeting private investment to get the latest step-change in the scale of the site going.

The confidence of Mr McKay and his team that this is the way forward will surely be based on a detailed assessment of the opportunities as they strive to take advantage of the huge amount of vacant space on the site, much of it currently dedicated to car parking.

Housing and........

© Herald Scotland