Argyll and Bute Council’s leader met the Secretary of State for Scotland last week to discuss a rural growth deal for the area.
Cllr Aileen Morton said the move would ‘bring benefits for everyone’ after talks with David Mundell in Edinburgh.
Afterwards Mr Mundell said: “The UK Government has so far committed more than £1.36bn of city and growth deal investment to boost productivity and create high quality, well paid jobs across Scotland.
“It is my personal ambition to ensure that the whole of Scotland is covered by a deal and I welcome Argyll and Bute Council’s hard work to progress proposals to boost the area.
“The UK Government looks forward to working with partners to help develop plans.”
Argyll and Bute formally submitted its Rural Growth Deal to both the Scottish and UK governments last November.
The Scottish Government has committed to providing 100% growth Deal coverage across Scotland, with successful Deals also featuring investment from the UK Government.
Political confirmation of a Deal is followed by negotiations to reach agreement on investment levels and timescales.
Cllr Morton said: “This was another opportunity to highlight to the UK Government that there really are benefits for everyone in securing a Rural Growth Deal for Argyll and Bute.
“We have been working on a set of proposals which will make a real difference to those who live, work and do business in Argyll and Bute and will also make a significant contribution to delivering national government priorities.
“Our deal proposals cover the length and breadth of Argyll and Bute. They’re based on the themes of growing, attracting and connecting.
“We want to create centres of excellence where they can make the biggest difference – for example, engineering in the Helensburgh and Lomond area.
“Innovation also features heavily with plans focusing on key Argyll and Bute sectors like food and drink, aquaculture and the Marine Science Park near Oban.
As well as developing our local industries we also want to make the most of our outstanding natural resources, with our tourism proposals establishing Argyll and Bute as Scotland’s adventure coast.”
After Wednesday’s UK Government meeting, the next stage for Argyll and Bute in securing the all-important political confirmation is to meet with the Scottish Government.
Arrangements are currently in hand for talks in August with Michael Matheson, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity.
Is there likely to be an election sometime soon? Our Council leaders are doing a lot of bragging with little to back it up. This same story is in the Helensburgh Advertiser. Today I got another tale from them supposedly based on a consultation exercise; it was no more than a propaganda exercise. I’ll see if the link copies in below.
Despite what councillors Morton and Mulvaney tell us in their publicity the last figures show that Argyll is a shrinking place with less people and fewer businesses setting up here. We have a rapidly aging population that is not helped by the grasping policies of our council leaders. We have too many overpaid officials and a shrinking number of people doing the essential but unglamorous that keeps the place going. We have vanity projects like the new council offices, the Chord project, Hermitage park and the Waterfront project but little maintenance. Visitors are deterred by exorbitant parking charges and neglected infrastructure together with the what can we charge for next mentality.
https://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/sites/default/files/budget_consultation_action_report_2019_updated.pdf
New waterfront leisure centre just a huge waste of money on what is indeed a vanity project.
The best option to my mind for the future of Helensburgh would be to construct a completely new extended pier using modern methods (sheet piling, but not pretty) and the old wooden pier decking removed allowing infill around the wooden piles.
This would allow effective dredging allowing the reinstatement of a ferry service.
If an appropriate all weather vessel were utilised with the speed to achieve a timetable which actually served the purposes of the people of Helensburgh and HM Naval Base Clyde (theme of growing and connecting?)
This could be funded by not building the eyesore of a proposed new leisure centre which, in my mind does nothing to enhance Helensburgh as a seaside resort town, and if a new swimming pool is actually required they can build it up the hill on council property. This could then be a relatively low cost utility type building but in no danger from wave over topping and flooding.
Old swimming pool could be demolished to provide more parking spaces.