Dumbarton Artizan Centre
A vibrant people-focused neighbourhood
Artizan Centre, Dumbarton
One of three Levelling Up funded projects in Dumbarton, the Artizan Shopping Centre (located in the centre of the town) is 50% vacant with several short term lets. The outdoor mall (College Way) comprises five buildings of stark, bland and monotonous architecture showing clear signs of deterioration. As such, the heart of the town centre is experiencing low footfall and a poor reputation in the community.
West Dunbartonshire Council
Dumbarton
Our Response
A masterplan has been developed for Planning Permission in Principle, comprising a mixed-use scheme that seeks to redevelop the site and partially repurpose the existing asset where possible. The masterplan creates a new, high quality, permeable, public realm and is intended to contain the following uses:
-Residential
-Retail (at ground floor and key corners)
-Leisure / Food & Beverage
-Healthcare Facility
Phase 1 of this development framework will deliver façade improvement works with a focus on the High Street and College Way frontages to introduce richness, texture and variety through a material palette deriving from the town’s glassmaking history.
The Outcome
The project will:
Create a resilient and thriving place that meets the needs of the wider community.
Rebalance uses to provide a more resilient mix and stimulate footfall.
Consolidate retail, introduce new town centre housing and create positive public place.
Consider the project in the wider town centre context – A vision led co-ordinated approach that enables decisions to be made with an understanding of the wider benefits and implications.
NOTEBOOK BY BILL HEANEY
All of the above, dear readers, is what West Dunbartonshire Council is promising us Dumbarton Town Centre will look like in five years’ time.
At least it’s an artichect’s vision of how Dumbarton Town Centre will look in five years’ time or maybe even sooner.
Would you believe it? I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. The Council have an unenviable reputation for promising much but delivering very little.
Look around you at the Dumbarton of today. It has gone in half a century from being the capital of the County to a crumbling area of deprivation surrounded by sink estates.
The Council appear to think the people of this a community are stupid. That they reflect the sub standard education offered in the schools they provide here at the taxpayers’ expense.
They want to take credit for the relatively few high achievers amongst our young people while at the same time turning a blind eye to the teenagers who leave school without the ability to read, write and count.
Same goes for the health and social care services which they provide through the arm’s length Health and Social Care Partnership.
Don’t let them tell you that this is down to the Health Board. West Dunbartonshire Council is represented on the Board by people who say very little, do very little and certainly don’t earn the allowances they receive.
So far as the UK government is concerned West Dunbartonshire now has Douglas McAllister as its Member of Parliament. He was West Dunbartonshire’s Provost who achieved practically nothing in the time he was in Church Street.
And then we have Dame Jackie Baillie who has been our MSP since the Scottish Parliament came into being 25 years ago.
Her popularity has tumbled in the wake of the Labour government being elected at Westminister. It has suffered badly with the arrival of Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister and one poor decision after another.
These include the abolition of the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance; the refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap on families; the slap in the face for the WASPI women…
Dame Jackie will have got the message that she must do better in order to hold her seat in Holyrood at the election in 18 months’ time.
As for the Labour members of West Dunbartonshire Council who resigned the administration in a fit of pique when they disovered the Provost’s gold chain was not coming their way, they are fully deserving of their basket case reputation.
Now, we have them behind this most recent propaganda about the Town Centre. We know there is much that is questionable to be disclosed about that project, which will be exposed in good time.
The details of what is holding it back at present are because the anti democratic council allow their officials to make decisions on their behalf without reference to the elected members. It’s an ongoing scandal they refuse to resolve.
But, hey, this is Dirty Old Dunbartonshire, which has never been dirtier than it is now because of the shambles the Council made of its festive season bin collection programme.
Oh, and I have just noticed they have spelt Concord wrongly in their map, and that Dumbarton Parish Church is referred to by its former name, Riverside. The Bell Centre is still being called the High Church.
Who is living in the past now then? And for those who appreciate a look back in time, the picture below from reader Donald Chisholm is of Dumbarton Town Centre in the 1970s. Picture at top of page is of the demolition works currently taking place there.
