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Published
by Bill Heaney
Fourteen Scottish communities have been named as those sharing £280m of “revitalisation funding,” which West Dunbartonshire has already received and is putting to doubtful use in Dumbarton, Vale of Leven and Clydebank.
The UK government announced in September there would be up to £5bn of investment for 339 “overlooked” communities across the UK to spend on high streets, parks and public spaces.
The Scottish neighbourhoods, spread across 12 council areas, will each get up to £20m.
Two communities each in Fife and Glasgow will receive funding, as will neighbourhoods in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Eilean Siar, Falkirk, Highland, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian.
West Dunbartonshire received £20 million from Boris Johnston’s Tory government and much of that money has been allocated to a new library and museum, which many people claim we don’t need here.
A tranche of the cash has been allocated to improve the eyesore town centre that local people have bitterly criticised and to Glencairn House in the High Street where the “regenartion” work is already overspent, seemingly by £millions, and has caused caused the Quay car parks, which were supposed to serve shoppers, to be reduced to a building site.
A press release issued by spin doctors for the council and contractors states: “The Pride in Place Programme will see the money shared over 10 years in areas with regeneration projects.
“Neighbourhood boards with representatives from local communities will decide exactly what the investment will be spent on.
“Projects are expected to include revitalising high streets and town centres, improving safety and security and preserving local heritage.”
People in Dumbarton have learnt to their cost that these expectations have never been delivered here or in Mitchell Way and Main Street in Alexandria and the Clyde Shopping Centre in Clydebank, where residents found out only recently that, like Dumbarton, their town had been allocated £20 million.
Neighbourhoods sharing funding
The regeneration in Clydebank mainly involves the Queen Quays, where the great Cunard liners were built in the heyday of shipbuilding on Clydeside.
When that was wiped out by Margaret Thatcher and John “lame duck” Davis, Clydebank Rebuilt came into being alongside Dunbartonshire Enterprise.
That company folded after local people expressed dismay at what little was achieved there, despite the drafting in of Lord John McFall, the MP for the area, to chair it.
McFall, right, was successful with the Strathclyde Regeneration Company by Clydebank Rebuilt was unsaveable.
The centrepiece of the development was the Titan Crane from John Brown’s shipyard which opened as a visitor attraction which appears now to be closed, but the secretive council won’t say who turned the key in the lock.
Projects in the town library and town hall have been far from successful and local people have written to the Council’s own injudiciously set up Complaints Column on their own website which advertises everything that is wrong with the town, including pot-holed roads, old, damp and poor housing, to tell the world about the current state of the place.
Clydebank is now being treated by government as one of Scotland’s many “sink towns” when it should have become a post war magnet for investment in housing, employment and environmental innovations.
People in the Faifley housing estate – much of it social housing – are living in fear of a dangerous battery storage factory being built near the homes on the border with middle class Milngavie and Bearsden.
Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander, left, said the money would benefit 14 of the “most in need” communities, but local people are scepitical about politician’s promises.
“Over decades of decline, people have watched as their neighbourhoods have lost services and support,” he said.
“So now we are putting the power into the hands of local people who can decide how the money is spent.
“We’re investing directly in Scottish communities to build stronger, thriving neighbourhoods.”
People in Dumbarton and Vale of Leven consider this kind of talk is just more bombast from Labour who have lost most of their political power in Clydebank, which once elected Communist Party councilloors.
The new regeration funding will be available from April next year after the local government election when Labour look set to be humbled by the SNP if the most recent polls are to be believed.
According to the spin doctors, locations for regeneration to proceed were selected based on a ranking of neighbourhoods, using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) and Community Needs Index.
Its a big question as to where the money goes in WDC.
Every one of their projects funded either through council tax or government grants go awry.
Take the new Glencairn library museum refurbishment. It would be interesting to be told the cost of the now badly delayed project. A wee bird is suggesting that the footprint cost per square metre is around £25,000. Just think about that.
Or what about the grandiose Artisan Way fairy story. Two years on and a couple of million spent on something that was to cost about a quarter of that, the council have only managed to deliver two building demolitions and a fenced of demolition site – with incidentally a part left bit of the demolished building left looking like the girder photograph of the remains of the twin towers.
Maybe the WDC should put a flag on top of remains bit of the building and take a picture with proudly councilors around.
Or the Smollet Fountian in the Vale. A million pounds a wee bird says was the costvof the sandblasting, repaint and illumination. Only the best – eh?
And dont ask about the relief road at Milton. Originally proposed at much less than £20m, the construction costs are now soaring to around two and a half times that. Maybe our council could advise the costs of their latest deliverance.
It just goes on and on and on. And the council say they are skint!