Community vows to fight Supermarket plans
CAMPAIGNERS have vowed to defeat plans for a supermarket on Helensburgh’s waterfront - as they have repeatedly over 30 years.
A packed Helensburgh Community Council (HCC) meeting last week heard unanimous opposition to Argyll and Bute Council’s decision to sell prime seafront land to Forrest Group.
Their bid will include a supermarket - understood to be the Co-op - but no other details have been forthcoming.
The council published a Q&A on their website about the closed-door decision - two weeks later and hours before the HCC meeting.
Instead, it was left to HCC to take 125 members of the public at their meeting through decades of attempts by the council to put a supermarket on the land.
It was branded an “obsession” by one member of the public. And they condemned the local authority for seeking to make money out of Helensburgh to spend in “Dunoon, Oban and Rothesay”.
Another pointed to the recent sail-past by the paddle steamer Waverley and said: “Who’s going to come to Helensburgh on the Waverley to go to the Co-op?”
One attendee called the Co-op a “co-conspirator” with the council, because it moves the supermarket from a building that is owned by the council, freeing it up for an unknown future plan.
The council had said 83 people were consulted last year - and one of them attended the public meeting last week.
He told the room that they were given five options to choose from for the waterfront site, and that didn’t include “what we wanted”.
The council concluded there was no agreement about the land.
HCC gave a history lesson of the site and pointed out that a supermarket had been rejected in 1993, 2001, 2011, 2016 and 2023 by public surveys.
“We have seen the community’s message writ large,” said HCC convenor Peter Brown.
“There is strong concern the Co-op will move and leave a hole in the town centre.”
He asked what policies were followed and what evidence the plan was based on.
Two councillors - Fiona Howard and Paul Kennedy - attended the meeting, but both said they couldn’t comment because they are members of the planning, protective services and licensing committee which will consider, and vote on, the plans for the waterfront development when they are formally submitted.
Cllr Kennedy said: “I do have my own views, but I’m reserving them in my own head.”
And Cllr Howard said: “This has been a long process. There’s questions we all want to ask and answer.”
She added that the council’s Q&A page about the site will have more information, including details of the eventual planning application.
Community councillor Cameron Foy went through the history of the site, starting 30 years ago, when Luss Estates proposed a supermarket that was approved by the council, but rejected by the then Scottish Executive.
In 2007, a supermarket plan was again rejected by the public, and the same happened in 2011.
A picture of the plan from 2011 was described as looking “like what we are going to be left with”.
Mr Foy said: “What we are ending up with is what we rejected 10-15 years ago.”
He pointed to the plan appearing to have no accommodation for coaches, and how large retailers send money out of town, or even out of the country.
“We have 30 years of public rejecting a supermarket and the council being determined to push a supermarket,” he said.
“The council doesn’t seem to listen to the public of the town.
“We don’t feel we have had all the information provided to us about
Who’s going to come to Helensburgh on the Waverley to go to the Co-op?
the waterfront.”
The community council’s covice convener, Polly Jones, said: “We don’t want a supermarket development, and I don’t want to be told I just don’t know what’s best for me.”
She said they were exploring all options, including legal routes, particularly over the lack of consultation.
Ms Jones urged everyone to sign the petition HCC set up and write to politicians and the chief
executive and political leader of Argyll and Bute Council.
She added: “There’s plenty for us to do. Look at the history. We have not had a supermarket built yet on that site.”
There was enthusiastic applause from the public at Ms Jones’s remark.
Jackie Baillie MSP, who was among those present at the meeting, said: “This has been going on for half as long as I have been alive, and this issue has still not been resolved.
“It frustrates me we are locked in a battle with the local authority.
“In all the time I have been in politics, and before, when I worked for local authorities, what I cared about most is you have to listen to people.
“The people who live there have the best ideas. It strikes me that has not happened.
“This community in my experience doesn’t give up that easy. Consultation matters. The fact it was so poor, matters.”
Ms Baillie said she had written to the council, asking for a pause to listen to the public’s concerns.
“It’s such an iconic part of Helensburgh,” she added.
“It’s worth taking the time to get it right. I will stand full square behind this community.
“Even before you get to planning there’s an opportunity to ask the administration to look again, because it’s so important for the town.”
Former councillor Vivien Dance said she had been involved in rejecting a supermarket before.
She said: “In every case, people power won. This is just history repeating itself.
“Do not despair. You will not win this campaign on Facebook.
“We have beaten them four times. Don’t give up. Fight it, and do it as dirty as you can.
“It was not that we couldn’t agree, it was ‘nae supermarket’.
“We will agree what should go there when they throw this in the bin.”