SHIPBUILDING on the Clyde will be revived under plans drawn up by one of Scotland’s most prominent entrepreneurs.
Jim McColl’s engineering firm Ferguson Marine has lodged blueprints aiming to bring Glasgow’s celebrated Graving Docks back into working life as a ship repair and maintenance facility.
The proposals also include the development of a maritime museum “worthy of the shipbuilding heritage of Glasgow”.
Should planners at Glasgow City Council green light the plans, Mr McColl said, they would send out a “huge message that shipbuilding and ship repairing was back at the Clyde”.
READ MORE: Maritime museum incorporated into plans for shipbuilding revival
But Port Glasgow-based Ferguson Marine, which was bought out of administration by Mr McColl’s Clyde Blowers Capital in 2014, faces opposition from developer New City Vision, the owner of the site, which has submitted plans to build 800 homes, a heritage centre, hotel and restaurant as well as retail and office space.
There has been no dialogue between the two firms with a spokesperson for New City Vision saying: “We are very surprised to learn of this planning application.”
Speaking last night to The Herald, Mr McColl said: “You don’t need to own the land to put in the application.
“Looking about Scotland, this is the best site for a ship repair centre. That’s why we applied for planning permission. It would then be up to the council what they want to do with it. Is it something that they want to have for ship repair and a maritime museum or is it something they want to build houses and commercial activity on?”
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “While we do not comment on individual planning applications, we welcome any proposal that could continue the regeneration of the Clyde and bring new jobs and facilities that the people of Govan and the whole of Glasgow could benefit from.”
The New City Vision spokesman added: “We own the site and in October we submitted our own compliant planning application in line with the Glasgow City Development Plan, which has zoned it for housing with a suggested density up to 800 new homes.
“We believe our plans for the Graving Docks will not only play a key role in reinvigorating this part of Govan’s waterfront, they will also be a catalyst for positive economic and social change through valuable long-term jobs and affordable housing.”
The docks, which have lain derelict since 1987, were said by Mr McColl to be a “great facility for repair and maintenance work”.
He said the site would require initial investment of around £10 million to £12m and would create 50 to 60 jobs before “growing substantially”.
The Graving Docks contain three separate basins, the largest of which could handle ships as large as the Titanic.
READ MORE: Maritime museum incorporated into plans for shipbuilding revival
The dry docks were built by the Clyde Navigation Trust and opened in three stages between 1875 and 1898. The docks once employed as many as 500 workers, who coated the bottoms of boats with pitch. Historic Scotland described them as “an outstanding graving dock complex without parallel in Scotland”.
The Govan area is part of a wider area receiving £114 million investment incorporated within the £1billion Glasgow Region City Deal. This includes funding for both a pedestrian and cycle bridge between Govan and Partick close to The Riverside Museum, and improvements to quay walls. Other Clydeside developments that would lay close to the Graving Docks include more than 100 new homes on Water Row looking over to the confluence with the Kelvin.
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