South Cowal is the Community Council with all the action these days.Within weeks of hosting – with marked success in a very well organised and chaired event on Argyll and Bute Council’s proposed sale of the Castle Toward estate – South Cowal Community Council will shortly be in action again on this front.
It is to hold its second public meeting on 19th March at 7.30pm in Toward Memorial Hall.
The focus of this one is the issue of Clydeport and the ships laid up in Loch Striven.
Invitations have been extended to the constituency and list MSPs, to the local MP, representatives of Clydeport (Peel Group), Maersk, Argyll and Bute Council, the Marine and Coastguard Agency and businesses in the Loch Striven area.
This matter began back in the summer of 2009 when Clydeport directed Maersk, the shipping line owning the container ships in question – which were coming in to Loch Striven for laying up to sit out the recession – to anchor them directly in front of the houses of the small community on the east lochside.
There were appropriate alternative locations which we understand Maersk would have been happy to use but which were not offered.
Clydeport made no effort to consult the local community then or since. As a company, it has no Corporate Social Responsibility policy – which all modern major businesses are expected to have and observe – as does Maersk. It also ignored – with unparalleled rudeness, approaches from Government Ministers, other MSPs and local Councillors who wished to discuss the situation.
By a flawed and suspect process which we are investigating, it became the statutory authority for the Clyde River and the Firth of Clyde port.
It answers to no one except itself. Provided it does not break the law, the Government cannot touch it. It is utterly unaccountable.
Moreover, it is privately owned – by a secretive billionaire, John Whittaker, who lives in Billown mansion on the Isle of Man, thus avoiding paying tax to the UK, whose resources he uses.
Our own view is that the terms of the statutory authority held by Clydeport require urgently to be revisited in new legislation. It is not acceptable in any field for a business operated for private profit to run a major public service with no accountability whatsoever.
Moreover, we know Clydeport to be interested – and not for the first time – in buying Edinburgh’s Forth Ports, which is for sale.
It would be disastrous for Scotland for the two major central-belt ports in the country to be owned by the same private outfit – whose conduct in this case has been shocking to all concerned – and by one with no interest in behaving with corporate social responsibility.
It would be highly irresponsible for the Transport Department to let it happen without intervention.
And – to shed light on the key interest of John Whittaker in buying up port authorities – they tend to have vast dockside and shoreside property portfolios of land and disused buildings. These are high worth assets today but are often undervalued at point of sale of the port company.
Whittaker started his business career as a property developer and this is where his business pulse beats – as an asset stripper with loyalty only to the dollar.
Read our main ‘rolling story’ on the Loch Striven situation – and associated stories archived there – in preparation for the meeting on the 19th March.
And a note for the future: South Cowal Community Council has not only the Castle Toward and Loch Striven issues to deal with – but has the proposed Ardyne Point development waiting in the wings. Exciting times for this newly elected Community Council.
