No matter how you look at it £1.15 billion is huge amount of money. That’s the value of Glasgow’s City Deal - the massive structural investment programme backed by the Scottish and UK governments and the local councils in the West of Scotland.

The flagship project of the City Deal is the construction of a rail link between Glasgow and Glasgow Airport. I’m meeting the Scottish Transport Minister, Humza Yousaf, this week and I’ve one big question for him - isn’t it time for the Scottish Government to commit to a rail link between Glasgow and Glasgow Airport?

After all we have been here before. In 2009 John Swinney, then Finance Minister, derailed the proposed rail link from Glasgow to the airport by pulling the plug on its finance. Surely the Transport Minister and the Finance Secretary, Derek McKay, need to avoid the same thing happening with the latest rail link project.

Now is not the time for questions but the time for answers in the light of Brexit and the considerable economic problems it may pose. I’m with the First Minister and her call for big infrastructure projects to be brought forward as a bulwark to overcome any damage that Brexit may cause the Scottish economy.

The City Deal promises to deliver 30,000 permanent jobs in the next 20 years, half of them construction jobs associated with the projects of the Deal. A sizeable percentage of those promised jobs are directly coupled to the rail link project. Every day that the Scottish Government doesn’t take action to guarantee the rail link is a day that puts those numbers in jeopardy.

I am calling for the Scottish Government, Transport Scotland and all other partners in this vital project to get round the table, thrash everything out and fast track its construction. We need all our politicians to put aside Party politics and help Glasgow unlock its full economic potential.

I’ll finish on this with the facts - the First Minister, the Transport Minister and the Finance Secretary all represent a Glasgow or Renfrewshire seat. Its time they put their collective shoulders to the wheel by giving the rail link their unanimous support – in private as well as public.

Last week was bookended by two great cycling events in the city – the fantastic Grand Depart of the Tour of Britain and the Skyride that went with it followed by the annual Pedal for Scotland ride to Edinburgh.

Bike racing is a very social sport - built around clubs, group rides, and a community of cyclists that has a place for everyone from the youngest fan to the most experienced pro. That was never clearer than at the Tour of Britain team presentation. Hundreds of fans braved the rain to meet their heroes in George Square. Among them the American time trial champion, Taylor Phinney, and Glasgow 2014 silver medallist, Jack Bauer, who went the extra mile, so to speak, by signing what seemed like hundreds of jerseys and posing for even more selfies.

During the Olympics this summer, an incredible 600 new riders registered at the velodrome – ready to take to the same boards that some of the world’s elite cyclists will race on in the Revolution Series in October and the UCI Track World Cup in November. That’s some total for Glasgow and shows how Glasgow is on a trajectory to become one of the best cycling cities in the UK, and indeed in Europe. World sports events can produce marvellous enthusiasm at a local level.

In a similar fashion there stands our own Chris Hoy. I lined up alongside the six-time Olympic champion to launch the Sky Ride. His enthusiasm for his sport and his role-model status are unquestionable. After the starter’s flag dropped in George Square I even beat Sir Chris to the High Street.The fact that he had stopped to do some interviews ion the way is neither here nor there – the stopwatch never lies!