Town Infrastructure - The Helensburgh Green Belt

The Green Belt around Helensburgh is a key asset of the town. It is not there just to protect the town. The Green Belt makes a positive contribution to the local environment for the benefit and enjoyment of landowners, residents and visitors. The content of the Green Belt is also important. Varying themes such as deciduous woodland, coniferous woodland, wet land and coastline are appropriate and develop what is there already.

INITIATIVES

• A strategy to manage, protect and enhance the character of the landscape in the Green Belt.
• Need - there is no co-ordinated plan to manage, protect and enhance the Green Belt; so anything that may be done is done in isolation rather than as part of an overall scheme.
• Benefit - the value of the Green Belt.
• Involvement - Argyll and Bute Council, the various landowners and relevant interest groups.
• A project, or projects, should be undertaken to create varied natural environmental niches within the Green Belt.
• Need - a practical expression of the management, protection and enhancement of the green belt.
• Benefit - the environment and the community.
• Involvement - Argyll and Bute Council, the various landowners and relevant interest groups.
• The Green Belt’s outer boundary in the north should be moved out to meet the National Park.
• Need - there seems no merit in having a strip of undesignated land between the National Park and its management regime on the one hand, and the Helensburgh Green Belt and its potential management on the other.
• Benefit - the landscape.
• Involvement - Argyll and Bute Council, the various land owners and relevant interest groups.
  

N.B. In the document, Initiatives that can be achieved fairly quickly are marked “-qw” (quickwin)

"To turn the vision into reality is a very big job, but it is well worth doing. We need to stop the neglect of Helensburgh, turn it around and put it on the road to excellence."

The Helensburgh Vision Steering Group