Town Infrastructure - Helensburgh needs good communication links and also good services
Helensburgh faces east. As well as being a commuter town much of the physical infrastructure and services used by Helensburgh people are located in the greater Glasgow conurbation. For example: aspects of employment, further and higher education, transport, hospital provision, policing, housing, business and industry, leisure, recreation and cultural facilities, and services. Close co-operation with neighbouring Councils should be integral to the management and enhancement of the infrastructure of the town. Some 10% of all journeys for work or study originating in Helensburgh are by rail (three times the national average). It must also be remembered that the MOD installations at Faslane and Coulport provides employment for Helensburgh people and the workforce provides spending power in the town.
INITIATIVES
- Telecommunication and electronic links should be enhanced by encouraging Helensburgh to be a model electronic town. With the census figures showing that the town has above average educational qualifications, the opportunity is greater than for most places.
- There is a need to develop a clear policy about location of telecommunication masts, site sharing and mast sharing because new technological developments will require more masts and without a policy there could be a commercial free-for-all and local tensions.
- Hospital and specialist health services are and should remain in our conurbation and should not be rurally based. The importance of the Vale of Leven Hospital, the Victoria Infirmary and the services of major specialist centres in Glasgow are integral to the town’s welfare.
- Provision of most of the schooling and some community education is, properly, based in Helensburgh. Growth of distance and open learning methods can also assist locally. However, Helensburgh depends on the greater Glasgow conurbation to provide most further and higher education. One aim could be to have a Tertiary Learning Assistance Centre included in the new Hermitage Academy.
- Policing is also a regional service centred on Glasgow and needs to be to provide specialist services. However, the needs for more manpower, improved CCTV facilities, a stronger residential element to the town centre and other security steps are clear.
- In many other respects - culture, entertainment, specialist services, etc. - Helensburgh relies on the physical infrastructure of Greater Glasgow. In a survey of opinions of Helensburgh’s young people, proximity to Glasgow for facilities without the city’s drawbacks was seen as one of the benefits of living in Helensburgh.
N.B. In the document, Initiatives that can be achieved fairly quickly are marked “-qw” (quickwin)
