[20.30 update below] For Argyll did a photographic expose of the thoroughly dangerous state of Inveraray Pier just under a year ago, on 24th August 2012 – Serious neglect of Inveraray Pier.
This was not just an accident waiting to happen. It was a chapter of accidents waiting to happen.
There were multiple sites o the pier carrying a variety of serious risks to public safety – including to small children and to the elderly, who visit Inveraray in significant numbers on coaching holidays.
We’ve kept our eye on the situation since that widely read article – and nothing changed.
Argyll and Bute Council, at the behest of the Inveraray Community Council, has now taken action on the matter.
In the interests if public safety, it has closed the pier and has installed barriers at the entrance to the pier to prevent public access.
The Council is in discussion with the private sector owners of the pier, in the hope of moving the situation forwards as soon as possible – but will not permit its reopening until its safety has been secured.
The McArthurs from Dunoon, who own the pier, also own the two historic boats berthed there which are also in a state of decline – the Arctic Penguin aka ‘Maritime Museum’ and the Vital Spark, the renamed Clyde puffer, Eilean Eisdeal.
These had offered paid access to the public but since they are accessed from the pier, they are not doing so at the moment. At the time of writing, the Inverary Maritime Experience website is still saying that it is closed for the winter season and that: ‘Users of the pier do so at their own risk’. That risk has now been removed by the action of the council.
The McArthurs have been trying to offload the pier and Penguin for some time – even using eBay to try to do so.
The issue here is one of features whose presence is a central part of the public image and of the facilities of their towns or communities and that have fallen into decay through their owners’ inability or unwillingness – or both – to maintain them or to reinvest in them.
Both have long been neglected, with no effort made to maintain them.
This sort of situation cannot be allowed to continue.
Resolving it needs two actions.
The first is legislative, to enable communities to purchase compulsorily key neglected local assets – and to do so at an appropriately low cost before the costs of their recovery become unrealistic.
We assume that if this legal facility does not yet exist, it would be possible for a proactive council to put a Compulsory Purchase Order on the pier – at a realistic price the taxpayer would not see as cushioning a less than responsible private owner; and then sell it to the community for the same price.
The second action is for communities to accept that their circumstances are primarily their own responsibility and to get on with taking charge of them.
Waiting for government, public agencies or local authorities to do it for them is an abdication of that responsibility – a stance which does not reflect well on the vigorous sustainability of any community.
For Inveraray, the pier is one of the most prominent features of a singularly lovely town. It is one that has traditionally offered support to maritime businesses, to the leisure and pleasure of visitors and locals – and to the film industry.
If it were recovered and well managed, which is an unarguable imperative, it potentially supports the development of varieties of marine tourism from which the life and the economy of the town would benefit.
A first class sailing and kayak school in Inveraray could make good use of this pier and its facilities. These are businesses perfectly consistent with the activity tourism which is Argyll’s major strength and enabled by Inveraray’s public profile and accessibility – half an hour from Tarbet on Loch Lomond.
These activities in and out of Loch Shira would also add to the variety of interest available for spectators along the waterfronts – and we really need to question why we do not already provide watersports skills for our young folk.
Loch Fyne is navigable to Inveraray – a modest pontoon facility in Loch Shira, linked to the pier would create a walk-ashore-and-back-aboard facility that would encourage leisure sailors to make the longish passage up to the town.
And why are we not thinking about locally based sailing and boating?
Where is a local sailing club? It’s too long a trip to the nearest sailing club at Ardrishaig to hope to embed a dinghy sailing culture in the Inveraray area.
Where is an Inveraray Coastal Rowing Club with its own St Ayles skiff?
Both of these would support a local chandlery and marine clothing and accessories retail business.
If we are to do what we can to resist a perpetually ageing local demographic, we need to make this place hum with challenge and activities that make the most of the fantastic natural resources – for residents as well as visitors.
The celebrated Inveraray Shinty Club, the local JogScotland club, the horse riding opportunities available at and through Argyll Adventure together do a great job for land-based fun, fitness and competiton.
But we’re surrounded by water and there are no parallel resources.
The crisis with its pier is the point where Inveraray has to gather the collective resolve to solve its own problems.
The community that let its own lovely stone-built Community Hall decline to a closed and safety-scaffolded condition needs to show that it has learned from that failure of responbsibility.
The hall is in an utterly enviable central position in the town and, once, added to its visual attraction. It can again.
The pier is another such resource – of a calibre the community could not now afford to create – but can and must recover. From then on it’s all about the fundamental responsibility of maintenance.
Time for Inveraray to man up.
Update 20.30: There is a mechanism at its disposal that Invereray could use to progress town projects like the pier, the community hall and whatever else comes up over time.
There is a steering group already in place to manage the regeneration project for which Historic Scotland has given the town CARS [Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme] funding.
With the nature of that group’s existing responsibilities there would be a logic in the Community Council giving it formal authority to work on its behalf on projects like the pier and the hall – if they were willing and able to do this.
