By Bill Heaney
There are more coffee shops in Dumbarton than you could shake a teaspoon at. Do we really need another one?
I am only asking because we are getting another one, whether we like it or not. And it will be in the new library, which is to be created within Dumbarton’s oldest building, Glencairn House in the High Street.
For a cool £5 million. Whit? No, we are not joking. Black humour is something we don’t do at The Democrat.
Ask for directions to Glencairn House and anyone will tell you that it’s next to Costa Coffee, a major High Street brand coffee shop; almost in the same building as Greggs the baker, and a few yards from the Captain James Lang. And yet another charity shop, the Salvation Army no less.
Oh, and just across the street from Auld’s bakery shop which had to close because there wasn’t enough people drinking tea and coffee and buying their delicious prize-winning pies.
These businesses all have one thing in common. They all sell tea and coffee and buns and sandwiches.
And they’re just across the road from the Artizan Centre, where local people are trying to make a living out of selling tea and coffee and a bite to eat in Aunty’s Tearoom.
Go along the road a wee bit and there’s the Gossip Shop which has a fine reputation for its elevenses and afternoon teas. And cakes, glorious cakes.
What’s wrong with the library we’ve got? Neatly situated in Strathleven Place, it’s handy for the bus stops both ways and it has a recently refurbished car park next door to it, and there’s another one across the street at St Patrick’s Church Hall.
The library itself is a good size and you have to ask yourself if we really need a bigger one since fewer and fewer people are reading books these days.
Council leader Jonathan McColl and members of the local SNP politburo have decreed that we should have a coffee shop, despite the fact they turned down planning permission from a private company for something similar just a few months ago.
Jonathan and his hingers on – I fear another costly disaster in the making here, accompanied by a big hole in the public purse – are trumpeting that “work to transform Dumbarton’s oldest building into a state of the art museum and library has taken another step forward, with project managers appointed.”
And who are the project managers? Are they based in West Dunbartonshire? Not a chance.
We’re told that Leeds based Turner and Townsend were awarded a four month £150,000 contract for the transformation of Glencairn House, and that they will work with Glasgow’s PagePark architects to continue work on the £4.8m project.
You would think the SNP would want a Scottish firm to do this work, but no.
The redevelopment of Glencairn House will be funded by a £19 million grant from Prime Minister Boris Johnston’s Levelling Up fund,.
The council claim it will transform Dumbarton High Street “with the demolition of the Artizan Centre and redevelopment of the main shopping hub in the town”.
Who is kidding who here? I don’t recall planning permission being granted for the demolition of the Artizan Centre and the “redevelopment of the main shopping hub in the town.”
That’s just Fancy Dan language for knocking down what we have already and building new shops which we haven’t a snowball in hell’s chance of filling with tenants.
Unless they are council-funded coffee shops or charity shops, of course.
They claim the key to this will be the historic Glencairn House, with councillors initially approving plans in 2019 – before the pandemic put the development on hold. It is now hoped that the building will open in 2024. Hope is a four-letter word in Dumbarton.
At a meeting of West Dunbartonshire Council’s tendering committee last week, councillors approved the appointment of Turner and Townsend to manage the project – alongside architects PagePark.
Now PagePark are an excellent company with a big reputation, but why aren’t we using our own architect’s department for this?
Council procurement officer (we’re delighted to have one of them working for the council at last following that long-running corruption saga) Derek McLean explained the reasons behind choosing Turner and Townsend.
He said: “One of the main reasons why Turner and Townsend were a good fit for this project is because, through their supply chain, we’re able to retain the services of PagePark architects to take into detailed design.
“They can build on the work they have done in previous stages. The project will be managed from Turner and Townsend’s Glasgow office.
“Previous use of Turner and Townsend was one of the main drivers behind their selection. They have committed to paying above the living wage, and any additional social benefits will be discussed at the implementation stage.”
When asked by Labour councillor Lawrence O’Neill, why the council’s own architectural services team weren’t involved, Jonathan McColl replied: “I was told that we didn’t have the capacity at that stage within the architecture team to progress the project. That’s why PagePark [led by David Page, left] were appointed in the first instance and why we want to retain them just now.
“They have worked on the documents and have an intimate knowledge of the fine details, so it makes sense to me to keep them on.”
We have been told previously that another consultant would be brought in at a cost of around £80,000 to envision what the new centre of the town, rather than the town centre, would look like. Is that another £80,000 down the river or is it the same one?
It looks from what has been revealed in the past couple of weeks that there is no need for this guy or gal who can look into the future to be brought in. Mystic Meg might be available though.
As for the rest of that £20 MILLION that Boris is sending up the Clyde (in a banana boat possibly), I think we should donate that tranche of public money to the Ukraine Emergency Fund. I really do.
That would be much better than allowing Council leader Jonathan McColl and the SNP, supported as ever by the autocratic Bailie Denis Agnew, to get their hands on it.
If there’s a museum coming up as part of this project then these two should be major exhibits in it as part of a ducking stool project since we are so close to the river.
I say this because Cllr Agnew appears to know little of West Dunbartonshire outside Clydebank. According to a council press release he appears to think the Turkey Red factory was in Dumbarton and not in the Vale.
We are now told that Agnew’s committee – yes, that’s the one that spent £25,000 on a painting a couple of weeks ago – is to spend £3250 for 250 copies of Clydebank author Tom McKendrick’s book on the Blitz.
I hope readers don’t think I received anything like that when I wrote TWO books about Dunbartonshire, including Clydebank, and donated some to Dumbarton Library and old folk’s groups to give away free of charge. I didn’t.
I think they spent £90 on half a dozen copies of All Our Yesterdays and Two Minutes Silence. Do you think I am miffed? Of course I am. Who wouldn’t be?
Bailie Agnew said: “The 80th anniversary of the Clydebank Blitz is so important and we should try and draw a conclusion to everything while survivors are still with us.”
What does that mean? That we should never mention The Clydebank Blitz ever again after he struts his stuff with his gold chain around his neck on this public financed civic occasion?
I note he has swerved away from a previous civic reception he was involved in on Remembrance Sunday when he invited only those and such as those to the town hall reception afterwards.
Items on display are set to include a Roman Medallion found in the town, a logbook from the Cutty Sark and 15th and 16th century Royal Charters.
The new development will also offer panoramic views onto the River Leven and Levengrove Park and a cafe, whilst the existing Dumbarton Library will become an archive and research centre.
And, let’s not forget – and those of us who lived through the ‘Sixties will not forget it in a hurry, the dirt and chaos of the past that will for years no doubt accompany the Artizan Centre and much of the High Street being demolished.
Perhaps we could also have a statue of distinguished citizens such as the SNP leader Jonathan McColl based on the famous Rodin sculpture of The Thinker. We could call ours The Stinker?
Meanwhile, councillors have given the green light to plans for a number of improvements in Dumbarton’s Denny Civic Theatre, including a brand new professional audio and visual system.
The theatre, has which has been closed since March 2020 is part of the Concord Centre which was used as a vaccination centre during the pandemic, has been given the green light for a number of improvements, including an upgrade of the current changing facilities, redecorating, and improving toilet provisions and a new professional audio and video system will be installed as well.
We can only hope the contract for this went out to tender and that a local contractor was appointed to do the work.
Many of the improvements will be long-term, but the Council say the installation of the sound and lighting equipment will take priority to ensure the building is opened as quickly as possible and be used for its intended purpose. The installation is expected to be fully completed in the summer months at the earliest.
The town centre High Street is a slum which wouldn’t be out of place in a developing country.
Take the empty shop that was once a shoe repairer adjacent to Ramsden’s the pawn shop on one side, and two empty shops on the other.
This shop has had an internal burst water pipe flooding the pavement for over three years. Spring, summer, autumn or winter the pavement and gutter runs like a third world sewer. Thankfully it is clean water. But no one cares, not even Scottish Water which must be losing over a million gallons of water a year. ( yes a million gallons – with a pipe running a couple of gallons a minute, work it out folks)
But no one cares in toilet town Dumbarton High Street. Harsh words, well maybe, but how can the council ignore this problem. In over three years has no one in our super excellent council ever noticed the running water. Jeepers you can smell the rot coming out the building. But the entire building is empty. Ready to fall down maybe, the foundations undermined by water – who cares, who cares, not our council.
Ah but the Council is spending £80,000 on consultants who are going to survey residents to see what they want for their slum High Street. And what next when the Lennox Bar closes. Another empty shop in the poor toon.
And the millions, many millions, spent on creating the new Council Offices now lying empty. Not quite the standard of the empty shops, but why did the council spend nearly twenty million on this new council building only for it to now lie empty. And where did all the council staff go. What are they doing now. Certainly not repairing the burst water pipes that flood our high street.
Ah stewardship under the SNP. Isn’t it fantastic. A real success story. Has the High Street got better or worse under their stewardship. Ask yourself that. It’s a good question. And does a wee bird tell me that the council building is never going to be used by council workers ever again. Well yes it does. Seems that there’s rumours going about that the building is going to be used for Ministry of Defence from the Faslane nuclear base. True or false – don’t know but the empt6 council building is now surplus to requirements.
No doubt, in due course, we may find out, and meantime we can only wonder where all the workers have gone.
And the future of the High Street? Maybe it should be that of a museum to industrial, economic, and social decline. It fits that bill already. So utterly sad!
The water coming out of that shop, Scottish water refuse to fix as they cannot locate the owner, been onto them several time under H&S laws as last year it was a enlarged skating rink outside
Maybe McColl can hang his £25,000 painting in the new library.
Demolish one side of the Artisan Centre; the old Post office building, the side with Lloyds Chemist, Auntie’s Tearoom, empty charity shops etc, 3 reasons this would give an open & direct corridor to Dumbarton Central Station, the building are well past their sell by date, the upstairs power & damp; lifts have been cut off for safety reasons.
The water supply tank on the roof above the Forces Support charity shop is burst damp; had to be drained ,this leaving the building with one unisex toilet fed direct off the mains supply.
If these buildings were cleared current shops occupying this building could be transferred to the opposite side with minimal inconvenience. Filling all shops with required stores, no requirement for further charity shops (or ChariTea)
Then enlarge the car parking area by 40 spaces to suit currently built car sizes move the bus stop to this point where the buses could pull into a lay-by rather than block the High Street continuously. Plus strictly no parking on the High Street enforced as adequate parking would be provided,
From the old phone boxes to the current entry to the Artisan Centre could be designated “ Disabled Parking only” again clearing the High Street of Disabled parking .
At the opposite side charging points for electric vehicles, people might question why we need more parking at the town centre, there is the point of the River Leven which continuously floods the parking bays beside it several times a year plus a the signs that say limited time parking which everyone ignores .
As for the new proposed tearoom lease it out to the highest bidder . Get some public money back.
This is only my view on how to improve Dumbarton town centre , but with the news that McColls might be shutting up stores (another potentially empty shop) I fear it’s only time before people come to Dumbarton Town Centre to watch the tumbleweed blowing through the town..