14 posts tagged “dumbarton”
The photo on the left is of Thomson's Bakers in Dumbarton. Inside there are fixed tables and chairs for customers to "eat in". Before the smoking ban, it is fair to say that the first thing to hit you as you entered the establishment was not the smell of baking and cooking but a cloud of tar rich, 5 star octane nicotene smoke. My friend Kit used to remark that they employed someone at the door to hand out cigarettes to the customers as they came in. He also said that Thomsons was famed for grey fern cakes!
Since the smoking ban, Lachie the owner, has placed some tables and chairs outside so that customers can still have use of the restaurant and enjoy a cigarette. The photo on the left was taken at 9:00 am on Saturday morning. The ambient temperature would have terminated the reproductive function of a brass monkey and the wind would have been at home on the Arctic Tundra. Respect therefore to the two customers who agreed to be photographed (on my phone) suffering for their habit!
This brief clip comes from VE day in Dumbarton.
I forwarded the link to the photo show to a few councillors and movers and shakers and have had several replies via email. They range from saying that I have hit the nail on the head to accusing me of doing the town down. My main reasons for uploading this montage was to try to concentrate minds.
The declared reasons for West Dunbartonshire Council banning cars from the High St. were to "attract more shoppers" and "improve road safety" (direct quotes from the chief exectutive of the council). It is surely clear to everyone in the town that not only has the scheme failed in both regards but also that they have had the opposite effect in quite dramatic fashion. Any WDC councillors or council officials who have watched the photo show and read this blog please now act with honesty. The scheme has discouraged shoppers in their droves as well as creating a road safety hazzard! Don't believe me? talk to any business person, shopper (if you can find one) or bus/taxi driver in the town. This being the case it is now incumbent upon the council to acknowledge that this is the case and tell us what radical genuine, serious measures they are going to take to redress the situation. It is not about point scoring or who was right or wrong, it is a serious problem that needs addressing.
Some folks had said that they couldn't read the text on my original photo show. Here it is re-done with a few other improvements.
I've put together a montage of photographs of Dumbarton High Street and Town Centre. Seven years on from the publication of the EDAW Action Plan for the town, unfortunately it is in a considerably worse state than it would have been had the cooncil simply left the place alone. Christmas trading was worse than the most dire predictions. It is clear that after years of ignoring the stakeholders in the town that the local authority has two options.
1) Start listening to local residents and business people and engage with them in a genuine attempt to regenerate the town, or 2) Carry on peddling the shite that their actions have regenerated the place and lose the town completely.
I wouldn't normally play a Cliff Richard cover but this boy has obvious talent! Today's Christmas track is Howlin' Wilf and Dumbarton Christmas.
I sit in a very early example of a planned town. Helensburgh which celebrated its bi-centenary as a burgh in 2002, was developed in the nineteenth century. The west of Helensburgh (the posh bit which contains Hill House) is built on an almost perfect grid system of tree lined streets. Many of the large houses therein now have bungalows built in their huge gardens and many of the large villas built originally by wealthy Glasgow businessmen are now divided in to flats. However the planned aspect remains in tact and it is a pleasant environment, created before any modern day planning regulations were introduced.
I would imagine the original, well to do, burgh fathers saw the desirability of this layout and created planning by laws to maintain the shape and development of the town.
Alastair over at the Heart Monitor makes the point that Planning Regulations introduced at the end of WW2 by the reforming Labour government (surely the most significant period of government in Britain in the 20th century) protected the general population from the wilder excesses of the ruling classes. In other words no matter how wealthy or powerful the individual or business, if they want to build anything from an outhouse to a factory they have to go through a planning process. Plans are submitted and will often be decided by a committee of local councillors who in general will act on the advice of their council's officials and lawyers. The current regulations date from 1972 and therein lies a problem. Anyone in Scotland or indeed any part of the UK can see that this legislation needs changed.
Large, unsightly single story buildings are springing up everywhere on brown (and green) field sites to the economic disadvantage of town centres. Where councils pay lip service to regenerating town centres, If Tesco or Marks and Spencers come along, a coach and horses will be driven through local planning policy to accomodate them. Of course a retail impact survey will be done showing that the already hard pressed local businesses will only be impacted by a few percent. This will translate to another half a dozen empty properties in the town a year down the line. Tesco/Sainsburys M&S and the cooncilors care not a jot.
The recent decision by Aberdeenshire Council to reject the Trump Corporation's proposals for a housing development and golf course north of Aberdeen threw up another problem of the planning process. Is it fair to ask a committee of local councillors to decide the fate of such a project? Is it perhaps along the lines of the Scottish Junior Football Association being asked to draw up the fixtures, rules and regulations for next seasons Champions League (although maybe a fair case could be put for that!). The actions of the SNP government in calling in the development for a public enquiry or judicial review has been much criticised. Is it illegal? Is it sleaze? Well I can't answer that but I feel they had little choice but to do something. Those who oppose the government's move will say that it is undemocratic if not illegal. Yet the majority of the people in the area seem to be in favour of the development. I would suggest that the decision by the council committee was undemocratic. In fact they turned the usual local council modus operandi on its head. Normally it's "everybody gets what nobody wants" whereas in Aberdeenshire it would seem that "nobody gets what everyone wants". I wonder if those bemoaning the overriding of democracy were so respectful of the poll tax? Somehow I doubt it.
Those who think that the local MSP (in this case Alex Salmond) shouldn't be aligning himself with a developer might be interested in Lomondgate a new £60m office, residential, retail and leisure development on the site of the former Diageo Bottling Plant in Strathleven, Dumbarton. The Chairman of the Development Company is the Local MP!
Whilst this may not be a site of Special Scientific Interest, its close proximity to the Loch Lomond National Park can be seen in the photo left (the expanse of water at the top of the picture is Loch Lomond)
Of course there are differences in the two projects but there are similarities too. Dumbarton's tradional whisky producing industry is shrinking in the same way as the North East oil boom. Regeneration is needed in both cases.
I simply don't know if the Trump proposals are "a good thing" and really any view on that would be subjective. Some see it as a millionaire's playground others as a source of employment and inward investment for the area. Whatever it is should the yay or nay be down to a small committee of councillors?
And while we're on the subject I wonder how many retail parks there are in Aberdeenshire? I also wonder how Union Street is faring compared to 20 years ago? The answers to these questions would perhaps give an indicator of the calibre of decision by Aberdeenshire council and their concern for the environment.
Footnote: I do realise that Aberdeen City Council is a different body. The point remains though as you could substitute and rural Aberdeen town or village for Union Street. It's hard to see how the Trump proposal would negatively impact on other employment/investment in the area.
I should have mentioned the Scottish teams in Europe this week and how various of my friends are willing each one to win and the others to lose. Firstly respect to Russell alias the Tomahawk Kid who as I type is in Madrid supporting Aberdeen on a lost cause. Commiserations to my pals Stevie and Craig who will be cursing Rangers luck on Tuesday against Stuttgart when it looked as if they were good for a point. Stevie it is fair to say would not be supporting Celtic last night or indeed Aberdeen tonight as he refers to both these sides somewhat affectionately as "they bastards". And finally congratulations to Davie who will still be cock-a-hoop at Celtic's last gasp winner against Shakthar Donetsk last night. One thing you can be sure of is that when Celtic are involved the game's not finished until the ref blows his whistle. Davie it was who at the final whistle at Parkhead when his team had just beaten Rangers, phoned Craig and just held the phone up to the noise!
Ah the glamour. In other news in the cup draw today Dumbarton got St Mirren away. So that's that then!
This 'Reporter's Notebook' item by Bruce Biddulph on Radio Scotland is a fascinating and emotional commentary on the Cutty Sark which was sadly gutted by fire in May at Greenwich this year.
I was delighted to hear of the latest initiative to restore the S.S. Sir Walter Scott and the Visitor Centre at Trossachs Pier. This is truly one of Scotland's jewels in the tourism crown. The S.S. Sir Walter Scott has been carrying passengers on pleasure trips on the scenic Loch Katrine (which also serves as a reservoir for the city of Glasgow) for over 100 years. She was built in kit form at Denny's Shipyard in Dumbarton (near to where Dumbarton F.C. now have their stadium) and transported piece by piece first by land to Balloch, then to Inversnaid by boat on Loch Lomond and finally over the hill , pulled by horses to Loch Katrine.
This is a series of photos I took on a visit there in September 2005.
