Helensburgh Town Centre has just been designated a new conservation area by Argyll and Bute Council.
The designation recognises Helensburgh’s special architectural and historic qualities and will promote the high quality built environment. The next step is to prepare a Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan. This plan defines what is special about character and appearance of the conservation area and how the way the space is used may change.
Hat tip Sean Davenport
The arrogance of West Dunbartonshire’s Depute Provost Karen Conaghan is breath-taking. I have watched her and some of her SNP colleagues giggle their way through council meetings, where her party’s austerity policies have been implemented with a heavy hand. And to utter under her breath supposedly why The Dumbarton Democrat’s representative should be allowed into the council chambers to cover meetings. But her self-important superciliousness, which involved switching off the microphones of two senior Labour councillors and preventing them from asking perfectly legitimate questions about a delayed report on the future of West Dunbartonshire schools, is intolerable
Martin Docherty-Hughes (centre) pictured with his election winning team after the result was announced in Clydebank early on Friday morning.
Britain’s Labour Party leadership has apologised for its dismal performance in last week’s general election but said Brexit and media hostility was also to blame. Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he took responsibility for the result but claimed that Labour’s policies were popular and that the party won the argument on issues such as climate change and austerity. Mr Corbyn said after the election, which saw Labour suffer its worst defeat since 1935, that he would step down and shadow chancellor John McDonnell said he expected a leadership election to take place within eight or 10 weeks.
A Scottish Government programme envisaging trials for seaweed dredging around the coast of Scotland has re-awakened fears for the future of “precious” underwater kelp forests. A work plan released by the government’s Marine Scotland says that “field trials” assessing the “sustainability of mechanical harvest of seaweed” are scheduled to begin in July 2020. Campaigners have reacted with alarm, claiming that kelp – a kind of seaweed – is threatened with “environmental destruction”. Kelp is vital to help cut climate pollution, prevent coastal erosion and protect marine wildlife, they say.
