A Ministry of Defence request to have a representative on the project team for the Helensburgh Waterfront project was agreed by Argyll and Bute Council, documents released under Freedom of Information legislation have revealed.
But both the MoD and council have now denied that this is the case.
Minutes of 20 meetings between council and MoD staff as part of the Strategic Delivery and Development Framework (SDDF) have now been made public.
They also reveal discussions of Rosneath Peninsula villages being ‘regenerated’, and how the council gave regular updates about developments on green field sites, while MoD-owned houses stood empty.
Notes of the very first meeting, in August 2016, state: “There is particular interest in Base representation in the Helensburgh waterfront project.”
And the next year a MoD representative whose name is redacted stated: “There is an expectation that the MoD/RN will be invited to engage in the project as the LIBOR fund was made available to support servicemen and their families. In addition it would be mutually beneficial to be seen to be working together on the project.”
Minutes of the next board meeting, later that year, state: “There is now a Royal Navy representative on the project team.”
But this month a MoD spokesperson said: “In 2016, and on account of its potential benefit to the local armed forces community, the Chancellor of the Exchequer awarded the project a grant of £5m in recognition of the contribution of the armed forces community to the nation.
“There is no formal RN representation on the project team.”
And an Argyll and Bute Council spokesperson said: “We have provided formal project updates to Her Majesty’s Treasury through the LIBOR fund grants – interim project monitoring form.
“There is no RN representative on the project team. This is not a precondition of the LIBOR funding, but we have provided updates to the base.”
The announcement by George Osborne in 2016 led to some confusion about how the £5m would be spent.
In 2017 a Royal Navy representative told a meeting behind closed doors that he understood the £5m ‘allowed the design to be more ambitious’, but a council official said it ‘enabled a funding gap to be filled.
Since then the cost of the development, which will include a new swimming pool and leisure centre, as well as retail space, has risen from £17m to £22m.
The latest target date for all work to be completed is December 2023; the swimming pool had initially been scheduled for opening in April 2020.
The location and design of the development proved highly controversial, with a survey run by Helensburgh Community Council showing a majority of local people were against the overall proposal.
Minutes of the SDDF board and senior management group meetings are available here:
I’ve watched the construction of the “swimming pool” over the months. I’ve wondered why the building is growing so large, it dwarfs the existing pool but the steelwork erected does not yet seem to include where the hole for the pool seems to be. I’ve been unable to find overall dimensions within the plans I’ve seen.
There are stories about performance spaces and a gym but then in my paranoid way I wonder about this report of MOD involvement. Might there be other ideas in the background?