Another £9m for Rothesay Pavilion, as Helensburgh pier restoration is dropped

The restoration of Rothesay Pavilion looks set to receive another £9m of public funding – at the expense of Helensburgh’s pier.

Argyll and Bute Council voted in February to give the project £6.1m, on top of £1m spent three years ago after costs doubled to £30m.

The A-listed pavilion on Bute has been closed for eight years and the delays have been blamed on the Covid pandemic – although work was due to be complete in 2019 – and the original contractor going into administration.

Now a report has revealed that senior councillors and officials decided in May to allocate £9m to the pavilion from the area’s rural growth deal funding.

Part of this funding from the UK and Scottish Governments was designated for ‘tourism – creating a world class visitor destination’, with five priority locations listed – Dunoon and Rothesay waterfronts, the Ardrishaig and Crinan Canal corridor, Kintyre sea sports in Campbeltown and Helensburgh’s wooden pier, which has been closed to mariners since 2018 after being neglected by the council.

The report by executive director Kirsty Flanagan says that even with the £9m, there would still be a funding gap of £4m for the pavilion.

“It has been very challenging to identify transformational projects achievable with the budget available in each location,” it adds.

“It was therefore considered that an alternative option could be to scope back the number of locations targeted and focus the tourism investment on a larger scale, transformational project such as Rothesay Pavilion.”

She proposed that the Kintyre sea sports project stays in the programme ‘as it is significantly advanced’ and the Outline Business Case has been submitted to government for first stage appraisal, but that the other three are dropped.

Her report will be considered by the council’s policy and resources committee on Thursday.

Earlier this year the council said the pavilion, which dates back to 1938, was ‘Scotland’s next potential top 10 visitor attraction’.

It added that stage one completion was now ‘on track for August 2024’ and work could be complete by July 2025 – if further funds are found.