Cllrs David McBride and Gurpreet Singh Johal with Labour MSP Jackie Baillie.
by Bill Heaney
New hope emerged this week that Dumbarton may at last get a new health centre to replace the jerry-built building in the old Artizan.
Dumbarton MSP Jackie Baillie said a health centre should be top of the NHS Glasgow and Clyde Health Board and Scottish Government’s priority list for investment.
But she gave no hint of where the money to build it would come from, or if it would be financed out of the £20 million “levelling up” cash awarded to West Dunbartonshire Council by then Prime Minister Boris Johnston’s Conservative government at Westminster.
Ms Baillie said the present centre, in Station Road on the site of the old Denny’s engine shop at Artizan on the banks of the River Leven, was past its sell by date.
She added that the “ageing facility,” which was damaged during Storm Eowyn in January this year, officially opened in 1973.
Vale of Leven, Dumbarton and Clydebank health centres.
The MSP referred to the existing health centre in her campaign brochure for the Labour Party as “a crumbling site” and added that the Vale of Leven and Clydebank health centres have already been replaced with newer, state of the art facilities.
Certainly, when the Labour council was under sustained attack for dragging their feet on the regeneration of Dumbarton Town Centre, the MSP turned out with Cllrs David McBride and Gurpreet Singh Johal to reassure the electorate that the health centre was included in the town centre plans.
Her brochure states: “Jackie is working closely with the GPs and has invited the Cabinet Secretary for Health [Neil Gray] to Dumbarton to see the issues.
“She has also launched a campaign to highlight public opinion on the need for a replacement and she is working with local councillors to secure a town centre location for a new health centre.”
If that campaign succeeds then the most likely site for the new health centre would be on the east corner of the town centre, which is currently occupied by the old Rialto cinema, which was being used illegally by criminals as a cannabis farm.
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