Greenock Telegraph Archives: Plans for Asda in Greenock

The supermarket giant wanted to build the £20 million store in the town’s west end.

Land just off Brougham Street had been earmarked for the new 35,000 sq ft premises, which was set to create 300 new in-store posts plus 200 construction jobs.

If the plans got the go-ahead, the store would have been built on a site which sits between Robertson Street and Campbell Street and was then owned by Clydeport.

Previous Greenock Telegraph archives: Council workers were to strike

The plan would have meant demolishing the building which housed Riley’s snooker hall and the Priyas Palace restaurant, as well as the long-standing overhead bridge which connected with Ocean Terminal.

Meanwhile, exam results in Inverclyde were the best for eight years, council education bosses had confirmed.

The pass rate for Higher grade results for students in S5 across all subjects was up by 3.4 per cent on the previous year.

That meant almost half — 47.6 per cent — of candidates sitting their Highers passed at the first time of asking.

No fewer than 18 candidates were celebrating five A grade passes at Higher level and the results also showed an increase in the number of S4 pupils achieving a qualification in both English and maths — up from 95 per cent in 2011 to 97 per cent in 2012.

Elsewhere, a fed-up trader in Port Glasgow feared his business could go bust because the town centre was ‘out of bounds’ for parking.

Major construction work was under way in Princes Street to demolish a building and make way for a 53-space car park in a bid to attract more shoppers into the town.

But pet shop owner William Weir and others around about him had grown increasingly concerned, with large stretches of the street cordoned off and customers unable to find a place to stop.

William, of Pets Paradise, said at the time: “My takings have dropped by 30 per cent on last year.

“I watch my customers going round once and then going back round again to find a space, but then they don’t come back.”

In other news, families campaigning for a plaque in memory of relatives killed in a Port Glasgow boating tragedy 65 years previously had made a breakthrough.

Regeneration body Riverside Inverclyde were looking at incorporating a memorial to the 20 people who perished in the 1947 disaster into their plans to revamp the town’s Coronation Park.

Friends Elaine McShefferty and Isabel McConnell had issued an appeal through the Tele for a memorial to remember those killed in the tragedy, which shocked the community.

The victims — including six members of the one Port Glasgow family — drowned on 14 September 1947.

Riverside Inverclyde said plans were in the very early stages but it was hoped a plaque with the names of the 20 people who died would be displayed in the park along with some information about what happened on that fateful day.

In sport, Peter Weatherson as delighted that Morton had developed a winning habit at the start of the season and was hopeful his side could continue when the league campaign got underway.

Ton were set to start off at home to Livingston– a match which came on the back of consecutive wins in the cups.

Weatherson opened his account in a 5-1 win over East Stirlingshire the weekend before but he insisted the Cappielow side had yet to show their true potential.