A REPUBLICAN march has made a renewed bid to go through Clydebank just hours after they were unanimously rejected.

An emergency licensing committee meeting has been called for August 31 to consider the application from the Independent Republican Bands Scotland (IRBS).

Councillors threw out the application on August 10 after the applicant, Brian Keenan, repeatedly refused to discuss or suggest possible alternatives to the plan to parade along Second Avenue.

Mr Keenan was accused of being "obtuse" and wasting police and councillors' time by his refusal to shift his position.

Now it has emerged he submitted a new, identical application hours later. The only difference is the date of the proposed march is now September 10 at 2pm.

The route proposed is to "commence at Morar Road, then south on Kilbowie Road, then west on Second Avenue with its continuation on Park Road, then south on Duntocher Road, then east on Dumbarton Road, then south on Agamemnon Street, then east on Cable Depot Road for dispersal".

This matches word for word the route Mr Keenan previously refused to amend.

In the August 10 meeting, police said they had no objection provided the route was changed.

At a meeting in June, the committee imposed an alternative route, with a motion to refuse the march altogether narrowly failing.

The IRBS was refused permission to march through Glasgow on August 7, the same day as South Lanarkshire Council issued a banning order to stop the IRBS marching in Rutherglen over public safety concerns.

But on Thursday, the same group won the go ahead from North Lanarkshire Council to march in Bellshill on August 27.

The renewed application for Clydebank again lists Coatbridge United Irishmen Flute Band, some of whose members were claimed to have been involved in the alleged Alexandria trouble last year, as the only band scheduled to be involved.

The stated them is, again, "One Scotland, many cultures".

In the last meeting, Mr Keenan said he would ask his organisation if the committee proposed a new route.

Councillors refused to offer one themselves and Mr Keenan was told he would need to offer one that didn't include Second Avenue - something which had been explained to him “on numerous previous occasions”.

Councillor Lawrence O'Neill told him: “I'm in a quandary – you are being deliberately obtuse. I won't be providing any alternatives”.

Mr Keenan challenged the basis of the council's argument that Second Avenue is a residential area, asking: “Are you telling me that no march will ever be approved on Second Avenue?”

He was told each case would be judged in its own context.