Comment posted Helensburgh’s Cumberland Avenue saga: planners trying not to hop to a Dance tune? by colin williamson.
MY LATE GRANDPARENTS RETIRED TO 19 CUMBERLAND AVENUE MY GRANDFATHER PASSED AWAY IN 1979 I SPENT MANY HAPPY TIMES AT NO 19 I LOVED THE WOODS NEXT TO THE HOUSE I WOULD PLAY IN THEM AS A CHILD. WHEN I DID A GOOGLE SEARCH ON NO 19 I WAS SADDENED TO SEE THE SCARRED LANDSCAPE WHERE THE WOODLAND ONCE SAT WHAT A MESS. I READ THE REPORT ON THE BATTLE OVER THE WOODLAND GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL IN YOUR EFFORTS TO WIN THIS STRUGGLE
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Underlying this all is the false assumption that you can keep building houses forever. Bluntly, you can’t.
Helensburgh has grown and grown over the years, and the town centre can no longer cope. There is a significant lack of social and affordable housing. Property prices are absurdly high.
The debate is not being had; do we want to limit the growth of Helensburgh to a certain level, or do we want to go for “big town” status, with all the reconfiguration of the town centre and infrastructure that would require?
Because if we do, we’ll need a decent plan. The current piecemeal pattern of development will do no one any good in the long run.
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For Stephen Mackenzie: This is an important issue. In the first edited clip released by URTV of the ‘Question Time’ filmed with Helensburgh Councillors, we noted that Councillor James Robb, a focused thinker and a direct communicator, was doing his best to signal – without seeming depressingly negative – that the Helensburgh CHORD project is no more than a bit of this and bit of that, with no coherent development strategy – or even development – to bring to the shapeless centre of this important town.
A few toilets at the pier and at Kidston, a few paint jobs here and there, widening the odd pavement….
Seriously – what difference to economic development will these trivial confections make? Will anyone notice?
And can someone tell us how these relatively small scale jobs add up to the allocated cost of £6.6 million?
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Newsroom: ..how these relatively small scale jobs add up to the allocated cost of £6.6 million? Who better to explain this than Councillor Dance?
I wonder whether Helensburgh folk fervently wish that their burgh had never been ‘absorbed’ into Argyll & Bute? The Helensburgh area needs local government – and developers – with the commitment to ensure that its future evolution respects (without apeing) the style and character of its glory days (and not only Victorian – the long abandoned Cardross seminary seems to be likely to get the care it deserves, and not before time)
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Am I the only one with a memory?
“I wonder whether Helensburgh folk fervently wish that their burgh had never been ‘absorbed’ into Argyll & Bute?”.
1 The Helensburgh “folk” were asked whether they wished to
join A&B. Presumably they answered in the affirmative.
2 The rest of Argyll & Bute “folk” weren’t even asked a
question about it at all!
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The list of Listed property currently and previously owned by Osbornes is interesting. Look back at the Templeton library in Helensburgh, which was allowed by the council to fall down really quite slowly before it was… turned into housing. How long before something similarly dodgy happens on the non-plots in front of Craigrownie Castle? The behaviour outlined above seems to be… well, I’ve just had second thoughts and deleted the word I wanted to write here, and perpetrated by a company owned by the single most influential local councillor. Nuff said.
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On the so called CHORD project, I note that the Council is going to spend nearly £7 million in Helensburgh town centre and what are we going to get for it? From what I can see, they are going to bend the road that runs through Colquhoun Square in the town centre.
When are the councillors that are on this CHORD committee in Helensburgh going to call a full public meeting and get up in front of the public and justify this crazy project.
I suppose that nothing will happen until after the election next year. By then it will be too late to get rid of these Helensburgh councillors. Has any one of them on the CHORD committee got the guts to come on here are tell us what we are getting for OUR money. I know what we should now be doing with the CHORD.
Will we (or they) be able to look at what they have eventually done and say that was money well spent or will we be saying it was a total waste of nearly £7 million of our money?
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Ummmm, is there a reason for bending the road in Colquhoun Square? Because I can’t seem to find it. Works perfectly well as far as I can see being nice and straight – unlike a number of Councillors.
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Crazy, I have discovered that at least three Helensburgh councillors are on the Helensburgh CHORD committee. Those at the last meeting were Gary Mulvaney (Tory) who chairs the Committee, Al Reay (Lib Dem) and Vivian Dance (Alliance) who are all ConDemnAll members. Apart from bending the road, they are also going to plant a couple of trees in the square. That is why it is costing £7 million of our money. The public need to be reminded of this next May at the elections.
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MY LATE GRANDPARENTS RETIRED TO 19 CUMBERLAND AVENUE MY GRANDFATHER PASSED AWAY IN 1979 I SPENT MANY HAPPY TIMES AT NO 19 I LOVED THE WOODS NEXT TO THE HOUSE I WOULD PLAY IN THEM AS A CHILD. WHEN I DID A GOOGLE SEARCH ON NO 19 I WAS SADDENED TO SEE THE SCARRED LANDSCAPE WHERE THE WOODLAND ONCE SAT WHAT A MESS. I READ THE REPORT ON THE BATTLE OVER THE WOODLAND GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL IN YOUR EFFORTS TO WIN THIS STRUGGLE
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