GOVAN’S Graving Docks should be recognised as a Unesco World Heritage Site, according to a group of campaigners who are hoping to create a maritime shipping heritage park – complete with visitor centre, floating business complex and nature reservation – at the site.

The Clyde Docks Preservation Initiative, which has grown out of an online campaign to have the Category A-listed site's significance to shipbuilding history recognised, is calling on the council and the Scottish Government to get behind their plans, which they say will have local, national and international benefits.

The proposal, spearheaded by photographer Iain McGillivray – now the executive director of the newly formed Clyde Docks Preservation Trust - has attracted over 6,000 signatures on a Change.org petition, which was recirculated this week.

The organisation is also attempting to raise £40,000 through a crowd sourcing campaign for administration costs for the project, including research and consultation, travel and materials, and management fees, despite the fact that the site is still privately owned.

The plans are the latest in a long run of proposals for the abandoned and derelict dry docks, which were closed in 1988 and bought by a private developer who initially intended to develop executive flats on the site. An application for planning permission was later withdrawn.

Built in 1869 for the Clyde Navigation Trust, two of the three docks where ships from around the world came for repairs were once the deepest in Britain. The site is described by the Buildings At Risk register as “without parallel” in Scotland.

McGillivray said: “I first found out about it from being a photographer, looking for derelict sites.

“I sent an email to the council suggesting that it could be a shipyard heritage site and after months of emails going backwards and forwards it became clear that if anything was going to happen I was going to have to start a campaign.

“We want to create a shipbuilding heritage park with a visitor centre, some space for artists and small businesses and maybe even an ecology park."

Under plans which, it is claimed, will create up to 250 local jobs, the old pump house would be renovated as a visitor centre and cafe, and one of the granite dry docks would be used as a berth for visiting ships.

“Further down the line we want to make the case for it to be a World Heritage Site,” McGillivray added. "The next time that it could be considered by the UK commission for Unesco is 2019 so it’s a long-term goal.”

Other World Heritage Sites in Scotland include the Forth Road Bridge, New Lanark, the old and new towns of Edinburgh and St Kilda.

McGillivray and his fellow directors, Jimmy Stringfellow and Liz Gardiner, led tours of the Graving Docks last month for Doors Open Day, which they said attracted more than 100 people, including local Govanites who had once worked there. They are also inviting responses to their plans as part of an online consultation.

However, the project has proved divisive locally, with community leaders and councillors claiming that the plans have been developed without consultation.

Questions have also been raised about the fitness of the team, which has no previous experience of major heritage projects, to develop the ambitious proposals without proper buy-in.

Pat Cassidy, managing director of Govan Workspace, said: “It’s obvious that the city of Glasgow has been missing a trick for a long, long time.

“It has one of the biggest shipbuilding heritages in the world. There are people who would flock to Glasgow if there was a significant heritage centre there.

“In principle, this needs to be looked at. But I really think that this demands the kind of action to deliver it that can only be achieved with the support of the Government, either local or otherwise. You are looking at a lot of money and resources.”

Gehan MacLeod, of Galgael, a community-run charity involved in boat-building projects, said: “We would be entirely supportive of the regeneration of the Graving Dock if it meant that there was more public access to the river. Our concern would be that there was the right team in place to do that.

“Any plans need to be grounded in community engagement; we need to ensure that there is wide consultation and it needs to benefit the whole area.”

The concerns come on the back of a developing row over ownership of the Govan Fair, of which Stringfellow is chair and Gardener the secretary.

Last month the Govan Fair AGM was abandoned after Stringfellow refused to accept a vote of no confidence in his leadership put forward by a councillor. It later emerged the organisation’s structure was changed and registered with Companies House without members’ approval.

Several organisations told the Sunday Herald that they were also frustrated by the behaviour of Fablevision, an organisation founded by Liz Gardiner, and claimed their names had been used to back funding bids without their knowledge or consent.

It is understood that some community organisations in the area now have an “effective boycott” on projects involving Gardiner and Stringfellow.

Meanwhile, Glasgow City Council, which was initially thought to back the development of private flats, has now indicated that it favours retaining the docks as a heritage site but is developing separate proposals.

The Graving Docks is one of two sites being proposed by the Central Govan Action Plan to be used for Glasgow City Council’s Stalled Spaces scheme, which aims to bring disused land back into use.

A meeting has now been set up with New City Vision – which owns the site – to discuss plans, though the organisation has not responded to approaches by the Clyde Docks Preservation Initiative.

Govan’s SNP Councillor Stephen Dornan said: “The group of individuals involved [in the current campaign] have not consulted with the community. They are self-interested people who are applying for grants rather than consulting with the people of Govan. They have simply set up a petition that supports what they want to do.”

Dornan claimed that the council, which earlier this year announced a £400 million regeneration plan – City Deal – which includes plans to build a foot bridge to join Partick with Govan, included questions about what should be done with the Graving Docks in a recent consultation about the investment.

“They came up with a plethora of ideas and we are awaiting the report,” he added. “It’s for the people to decide.”

However Liz Gardiner defended the proposals robustly and said they hoped to bring sceptics onboard.

She claimed Dornan, who led the Govan Fair procession for 25 years, held a grudge because he had been told that his services would no longer be required.

“This is local politics. It has been whipped up,” she said. “We have a consultation running that is open across the community and much wider than that.

“This is something of international, as well as national and local significance. The Graving Docks is much more important.”

Jimmy Stringfellow said that councillors in the area where engaged in political maneouvering. “Everything we have done is legal and above board,” he added. “We are volunteers working hard for the community.”

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council, said: “The Govan Graving Docks are an important part of the city’s industrial heritage and will hopefully play a role in Glasgow’s future.

“There have been a number of proposals for the development of the docks in recent years, and we would welcome any proposal that would further regeneration the waterfront.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman confirmed that the next opportunity for the Govan Graving Docks to be considered as a nominee for World Heritage Status would be in 2019.