THE culmination of two years of hard work, determination and patience has come to an underwhelming precipice today.

I wanted to write that I was delighted, proud and relieved with the result but unfortunately I can’t.

I set out from the start to support the voices of women who chose dancing as their career to be heard, recognised and involved in any discussions about them.

READ MORE: Glasgow's lap dancing clubs will be licensed as council launches second consultation

The workers may have been at the table for the evidence session but they were absent from considerations of how they would be impacted today when the council decided to delay an already two-year long process by another 18 months.

The vote today is now the beginning of another consultation to decide on two points:

1. How many licenses should be issued, even though this was asked in the first consultation and answered overwhelmingly in favour of three or more.

2. What a license should look like in order to protect and empower dancers.

The public is being asked again to comment on jobs they have never done, as are various women’s groups who resorted at the last evidence session to providing an account of an alleged incident in one club which was later exposed as false by Police Scotland.

In the middle of a devastating pandemic these workers are facing another public consultation because after two years of consideration, the council could not decide on the number of licenses to issue.

Glasgow Times:

The number of licenses was the key thing we needed to know in order to allow dancers to breathe again safely in the knowledge they have a secure job to go to when the pandemic ends.

I am still in awe at how these women kept their composure and carried the last campaign with such professionalism, dignity and strength in the face of it all.

Their work ethic was superhuman with long hours on top of working night shift and no matter the challenge presented they dug in and kept going.

I have no doubt the same will happen this time around.

My hope for the future is we heed the lessons from today and at some stage turn a corner of women’s rights and empowerment in Scotland.