ANOTHER delay to the completion of the M74's missing link in Glasgow was expected to be announced today by Finance Secretary John Swinney.

He was due to deliver the SNP's first Scottish Parliament budget and the proposed motorway section was certain to be a casualty, with the blame being put on a tighter spending round.

After persistent legal challenges from green groups, work on the stretch of road was supposed to have started last year with a completion date of September 2010.

That was delayed further by the courts and, after today's news, it's now expected the date for completion will be in 2012 or even later.

The tendering process closed last Friday and, going by the previous timetable, 2012 would be the earliest the road would be finished.

Last week, suggestions the road wouldn't be finished until after the 2014 Commonwealth Games were angrily denied by sources close to First Minister Alex Salmond who dismissed them as "ridiculous".

But there was no date confirmed for when work would start.

The £500million link from Fullarton Road in the city's East End to the M8 west of the Kingston Bridge is expected to create thousands of jobs and regenerate some of Glasgow's poorest areas.

A new delay will put back jobs creation programmes and the SNP will blame Labour as the Nationalist leadership say they must spend £600m on an Edinburgh tram plan for which nine Glasgow Labour MSPs voted.

Glasgow City Council chief Steven Purcell said: "The city will accept nothing less that a start and finish date which will deliver well before the Games."