Good causes for old people were given a financial reprieve by councillors this week.
But a bid to rescue a £1,500 grant for Helensburgh Seafront Development Project as part of work on the town’s pier failed by a single vote.
Cllr George Freeman tried to have a £2,500 grant for Helensburgh Savoy Theatre Company distributed elsewhere as part of the Supporting Communities Fund.
His proposal, which also included £1,000 being given to Cove and Kilcreggan Youth Café, was backed by SNP councillors Iain S Paterson, Richard Trail and Lorna Douglas.
But the other five councillors at a meeting of Helensburgh and Lomond area committee yesterday voted to approve the theatre company’s recommended grant.
However, some changes were made to other recommended grant – including that a recommended grant of £2,054.70 to Civil Rights First was amended to no award.
Instead, £1,554.70 will go to Cove and Kilcreggan Lunch Club, with the other £500 going to Garelochhead Senior Citizens. Neither were recommended to receive any award.
Argyll and the Isles Coast and Countryside Trust was also given its recommended £2,500 grant, but only after a vote which it won by five to four.
Community development officer Kirsty Moyes confirmed that the engineering study which the Seafront Development Project (HSDP) sought the grant for was understood to involve the pier.
Cllr Douglas said of the HSDP recommendation: “Why no award? There has been quite a lot around this.
“I know it has gone through changes as to who is in charge, but the group has been about for a while and did not ask for money in 2018/19. There is quite a lot of interest.”
Ms Moyes replied: “The application was for a grant towards an engineering study. Other projects might be able to evidence a greater community impact.
“We must assess the application by itself, and there was not enough impact around targeted inclusion groups.”
When Cllr Douglas stated that the study could be community-focused in the future, Ms Moyes added: “Part of the reason is the scoring matrix, which is based on community impact. That was why it did not score as well as others.”
Area committee chair Ellen Morton asked for confirmation that the study was on the pier, with Ms Moyes saying: “I understand it was on the pier area.”
Cllr Freeman said: “This is something I have a lot of sympathy for because a lot of the people [in HSDP] are volunteers.
“We keep referring to engineering work, but can you confirm that all of the other projects clearly meet the criteria?”
Ms Moyes confirmed that other projects did meet the criteria and HSDP’s application had not scored as highly.
Meanwhile, the Civil Rights First grant application was turned down after depute council leader Gary Mulvaney expressed concerns.
The group was defined in a report for the meeting as “a new organisation seeking funding to provide justice and money advice as well as authorised lay representation.
“They aim to work in partnership with existing service providers for referrals.”
Cllr Mulvaney said: “In the papers for Bute and Cowal’s Supporting Communities Fund, it was rejected on the basis that the grant was towards the cost of travel and adverts for service.
“Clearly in Bute there is some degree of over-provision in terms of advice. Here, we have the Citizens Advice delivering in different forms.
“There doesn’t seem that much difference but it was knocked back there. There seem to be two different views.”
Ms Moyes said: “They are scored separately, but questions are led by one officer. It is a very valid point.”
Cllr Freeman added: “When I saw they wanted money to give out justice and money advice, that to me duplicated services that the council currently provides.”
I was most disappointed that 5 of the councillors attending the Area Committee were happy to see £2,500 go towards Argyll and the Isles Coast and Countryside Trust (ACT) instead of it going to local voluntary groups. Only 4 councillors (Cllr Trail, Paterson, Douglas and myself) wanted this money to go to local voluntary groups instead. ACT is a Trust that was set up by the Council with full time staff and was accessing virtually £10,000 of this grant money across Argyll & Bute. This is £10,000 that local voluntary groups would be deprived of, £2,500 of which would not be available to local voluntary groups in the Helensburgh & Lomond Area. One of the local voluntary groups that lost out was Cove and Kilcreggan Youth Cafe. Although I proposed that £1,000 go to the Youth Cafe, I only had the support of Cllrs Trail, Paterson and Douglas with Cllrs Barbara Morgan, Ellen Morton, Aileen Morton, Gary Mulvaney and David Kinniburgh voting to give the Youth Café nothing. It is most disappointing that such an important group on the Peninsula were not thought to be worthy of any funding from 5 of our local councillors. I am sure that many youngsters and parents on the Peninsula will be most disappointed at this decision.
Apparently the ruling group did not wish to commit any cash to their pier until the results of their own (much delayed) engineering study was fully understood.
It is possible that they did not actually read the HSDP submission properly as it had little to do with their pier.
It was an engineering study to obtain quantitive data, to support their ongoing feasibility study (commissioned with Fairhurst Consultants), to provide Helensburgh with a community leisure facility in the way of boating pontoons.
In fact the money was required because their pier was in the vicinity and we need the data to ensure that we do not do it any further harm during the execution of civil works.
A&BC Marine had already given us the go ahead to conduct the bedrock exploratory works and we were just awaiting the award before applying for a Marine Licence to undertake the digging of test pits.
DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT (exactly as submitted)
“Engineering study, to supplement Feasibility Study, enabling formalisation of
requirements to install small craft pontoons and disabled access behind Helensburgh
Pier.
This study will also produce information and drawings required to apply for planning consent”