Campbeltown Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI), a major £700,000 Lottery funded part of a £1,945,000 regeneration of the town, is to launch on 21st January from 5.00-8.00pm in Campbeltown Town Hall and welcomes everyone.
The event will give residents and other interested people the chance to find out more about the plans for this unique Argyll town.There will be exhibition boards and information on work done to date, on grant funding available, on parallel projects, on community engagement with local groups (including schools) and on target buildings and shop fronts.
There is a feeling that Campbeltown’s time has come. A collection of significant developments has coincided, bringing both the wind of change and the bellows of ambition. These include:
- the arrival of Skykon, the Welcon Towers development at Machrihanish, focused on building on and offshore wind turbine towers;
- associated upgrading of the town’s roads and port facilities to enable sea transport of completed turbine towers;
- the completion of the unique Machrihanish Dunes Golf Course, the first to be built from scratch in a Site of Special Scientific Interest and cropped by its own herd of Hebridean black sheep. It lies alongside the beautiful surfing beach on the west side of the Mull of Kintyre and runs adjacent to the existing Old Tom Morris course at Machrihanish Golf Club, offering a fabulous dual golfing experience;
- the coming renovation of the Royal Hotel on an imposing corner on Campbeltown’s seafront, along with the Machrihanish Hotel – both being done by Southworth Developments, operator of the Machrihanish Dunes Golf Course;
- the revival of the stunning sea route from Campbeltown to Ballycastle in Northern Ireland;
- the settled success of major events like, for example, the Mull of Kintyre Half Marathon and 10k Run (winner of the Best Community Event in the recent For Argyll Awards 2009); the Mull of Kintyre Music Festival; the traditional music workshops and events brought by Kintyre Music and Arts Tuition Group;
- the attraction of the Kintyre Way, one of Argyll’s great long distance walking trails, tracing the spine of Kintyre;
- the formation of a buy-out group to try to secure the huge resource of the former (and mysterious) RAF base at Machrihanish, outside the town and alongside the airport linking to Glasgow Airport with a short flight over the near by Isle of Arran and offering flights also to the Isle of Islay;
- and Campbeltown’s renowned single malt whisky distilleries spring(bank) easily to mind.
Now the THI project will rejuvenate run down historic buildings, making them more attractive places in which to invest, live, work and visit.
The other major strand in the Town Centre Regeneration Project is the Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS), which has been active since 2007 and which received £385,000 from Historic Scotland.
The overall project has, to date, received over 200 enquiries and approved 42 grants. Almost 30 contractors have worked on the scheme, the vast majority of which are local. Work carried out has included shop front refurbishments, sash and casement window repairs, replacement close doors, high level tenement works and options appraisals for key buildings.
Among the more high profile sub-projects have been the refurbishment of two target shopfronts – 12 Longrow and McKellar’s Licensed Grocers – on which work began last month and to which the finishing touches are now being made.
Councillor John Semple, Chair of the Campbeltown CHORD Project Board, rightly sees this as a very exciting time for the town. ‘We have an opportunity here not just to improve the bricks and mortar but – in doing so – to generate substantial social and economic benefits for Campbeltown and the surrounding area.
‘These projects come at the same time as other significant investment in the area, both in terms of private enterprise and in terms of the Council’s flagship CHORD project, which will contribute to regenerating the town’s heritage and conservation sites as well as the marina and Kinloch Road area.
‘Campbeltown and the surrounding area are set to be transformed over the next few year’.
That spirit is good to hear.
The launch will coincide with a piece on BBC Alba the same evening, featuring interviews with both Councillor Semple and James Lafferty, the scheme’s Project Officer.
i’m afraid you have got rather carried away by the spin you’ve been spun .
i acknowledge the new golf course is very positive .
is it coincidence you did not mention the much delayed new downsized creamery ?
while any improvements to the town centre are welcome victoria wine has recently closed , several other long established shops are for sale with little prospect , and all this before tesco’s new bigger store begins .
the irish ferry is as far away as ever it appears and even councillor semple is unconvinced of any benefit to be gained by a community buyout of machrihanish airbase .
while i can understand the enthusiasm of those employed in distributing public money forargyll should try to judge success by results not wishlists of far off projects
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Kintyre1. With the exception of the ferry, everything For Argyll says is correct – is it not? Granted it would be good to actually see work started on the Royal Hotel etc but they are going to happen.
With regards empty shops – unfortunately, that has always been the case in Campbeltown. People tend to forget there has always been closed shops and unfortunately that is just the way of it. We aren’t alone with the problem – have you visited Helensburgh or Dunoon lately for example? Equally as many shops closed. Oban is, and always will be an exception due to its attraction and a destination and its gateway to the Isles.
The town centre re-generation scheme will make a huge difference to our town – you only need to look at the difference to Numero Dix, The Treehouse, Rolland and Butter etc I think some people have short memories. Can you remember our town 10 years ago? It was far worse than it is now. There is alot of work ahead too including the £6.5 investment of the CHORD project.
Don’t know enough about the Airbase buyout but instead of sitting behind a PC mumping and moaning about things why not get involved or find out more and then make your mind up?
ForArgyll has every right to be enthusiastic about the changes ahead for Campbeltown and Kintyre, especially in the current financial climate and it is always great to read positives. Your continued negativity on this website does NOTHING to help our community. The positives far out weigh the negatives by a country mile.
If we can get a bit of what Arran and Islay get in tourism then people will leave knowing how magical Kintyre really is!
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i dispute your claim “the positives far out weigh the negatives”
as for”mumping and moaning” i see you posted your comment at 3.41pm when i was, like the majority of working people still hard at work trying to build some prosperity in kintyre
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Okay kintyre1. Give me a negative and I’ll give you 2 positives.
“as for”mumping and moaning” i see you posted your comment at 3.41pm when i was, like the majority of working people still hard at work trying to build some prosperity in kintyre”
Classic – kintyre1. Have you never heard of shiftwork? Or are you ones of these people in a nice cosy 9-5 job? All I am saying is you have belittled a very positive article about Campbeltown and Kintyre.
Lets be positive about our future.
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lets start with the roads .
most people in kintyre consider them to be in the worst state in living memory with little prospect of any improvement
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Roads – yes agree that is a negative but one that is shared throughout rural Scotland and not Kintyre.
Positive – Welcon and the Pier Extension – Who needs roads?
No seriously the two are major positives which will actually see improvements to our roads.
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you kid yourself if you believe the roads in kintyre are in the same condition as those in other rural areas , friends travelled from somerset recently and said they never encountered anything like the kintyre situation . such comments are very common
regarding welcon can you inform us what they have delivered to date in terms of extra jobs etc and explain who is funding the pier extension and any other works to be undertaken
on another issue the closure of campbeltown’s most accessible public toilet by the snp run council has outraged many in the town particularly as we try to atract more visitors
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kintyre1, I don’t honestly think there is any reasoning with you. I didn’t disagree that the roads were not a state just there this is a common problem in other locations. Have you been to Bute recently? Dunoon? No, probably not. Living in such an isolated location you can only expect the road infrastructure to be poorer (we have B and C roads you see). One of the major problems is the amount of traffic on these roads. Too many families with 2 and 3 cars.
With regards Welcon well you’ll be unaware that the started 30 people in the last few months of 2009 then? And are now about to start on their own orders. You are aware of the following order they have secured to build turbines for the largest on-shore farm in Europe?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8378524.stm
And are you aware that they are about to start building the extension at their site etc? Which will bring employment to local people and companies. Perhaps you could read the following too?
http://www.allmediascotland.com/media_releases/24173/HIE-Helps-Argyll-Firm-Expand-to-Serve-Growing-Offshore-Wind-Energy-Market
The closure of the toilet in Millknowe is another issue and nothing to do with the ForArgyll article or your negative comments made after.
There is no point trying to discuss the future any further with you. All you breed is negativity. For me Campbeltown and Kintyre is moving in the right direction and I’m happy with that. With that I’m happy if people like you are left behind in the dark ages nit picking at the smallest of points when there are so many positives to be seen.
Personally, I don’t like speaking in cyberspace to someone who has no identity.
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airbrush the facts all you like i will continue to give a true reflection of events in kintyre
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kintyre1 said “airbrush the facts all you like i will continue to give a true reflection of events in kintyre”
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heed the words of scottish international rugby legeng Kenny Logan , alex salmond “cannot be trusted “
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if there has been one policy that has transformed campbeltown for the better over the last 20 years it has been the council tenants right to buy , now being abolished by the snp
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I always find out what rugby players are thinking before I decide which way to vote I don’t think.
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If there was anything which caused a huge shortage of affordable housing for young couples, stopped councils building council houses and guaranteed that the councils would be left with all the bad properties and all the bad tenants it was the idiotic “right to buy” legislation.
This legislation was meant to destroy non-Tory council’s power over housing allocations and make lots of Scots into little Tories. It was furiously rsisted by the then Labour Party who retained a vestige of the reason for their existence innthise days, but not now.
Lots of Scots took advantage of this gift horse. But in their defence they would have been foolish not to but they did not become Tories. Scots are generally not daft.
This bad legislastion, not thought through, meant that houses, built at considerable expense with taxpayers money, were then sold to a fortunate few for ridiculous discounted prices and the councils didn’t even get that small sum of money to help them built more to replace the ones they were losing.
The shortage of afforable houses for rent at reasonable prices them contributed to the rampaging and completely unsustainable rise in prices of houses, forcing more and more young people back into single ends, staying in parents houses and staying in caravans.
The SNP have done exactly the right thing by binning this legislation and already a number of councils have started building lots of new council houses.
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David, totally agree. Nearly spat my coffee over the computer when I read that one!
Willie, Again, totally agree. Seriously kintyre1, you really need to get out and find out what is happening in the real world. There are families in Campbeltown waiting MONTHS for housing and all down to the fact there is little housing available due to the “right to buy scheme”. You go up Calton or Crosshill these days and everyone has bought their house.
Not saying the concept wasn’t good (I personally benefited from it
) but it should have been restricted in some way.
Clutching at straws now.
Willie, David, There are plenty of people here who are positive about the future here so don’t read into kintyre1′s comments too much
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hughie you are a hypocrite – you benefiited from the policy but seek to deny others the same opportunity
just because houses were bought in crosshill avenue or other places did not mean they were not available to live in .
campbeltown has , and has had , some of the most affordable housing in the uk to buy .
people waiting for houses is more likely down to family breakdowns or the fact that dozens of perfectly good houses were demolished in the town when the problem was anti social tenants not the housing
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Kintyre1, I’m not a hypocrite and in fact you are a clown. I tried to have a level debate about it and pointed out that I benefited from it. I regret the smiley face as I benefited from the death of my parents who bought their Council house. (so I do apologise for them dying) Why not try reading people’s post instead of making up what you want to think? How can bought houses in Crosshill be available to live in?
If you read my comments again you will see I SAID that “Not saying the concept wasn’t good” so I do agree with it to a degree but it should be restricted.
If Campbeltown has some of the most affordable houses to buy why don’t people buy then instead of milking a policy that private house owners or private lets never benefit from?
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Having only the other day visited Campbeltown I am delighted to hear of the Heritage Initiative. We are English holidayers who love Scotland but hadn’t visited this part of Scotland before. We started on Kintyre from Tarbert, a quaint harbour which reminded us of Tobermory. Travelling down the East coast we came to Campletown, expecting something similar to Tarbert. Honestly we were a little surprised as it was not a tourist destination in the same way as Tarbert. We struggled to find accomodation, but the Visit Scotland office were very helpful, and gave us plenty of advice. After settling in we walked around the town, honestly it did seem run down, there was litter around the bay, roads were in a poor state and shops especially restaurants had closed down, the pubs seemed uninviting to a tourist, despite there being plenty of them. One thing that stood out from everything was the warm welcome everyone gave us, the people were very friendly & hospitable. We did eventually find a restaurant, the Indian Taj Mahal on the front. It was very good, but we were disappointed not to find a half decent (non Hotel) Scottish restaurant offering fresh seafood. I’m not sure Campbeltown wants to develop Tourism to any great degree – that was my impression, but I do feel there are opportunities being missed as Campbeltown as a tourist destination has so much to offer – magnificent coastline, walking, golf, fishing to name a few – if the harbour was cleaned up that in itself would probably attract tourists. Anyway thankyou Campbeltown for your warm welcome. I sincerely hope your future is a happy & prosperous one.
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