Inchgreen dry dock campaign voices concern at FOI requests

Glasgow City Council responds within the FOI required 20-day time frame but Inverclyde Council does not. We have to go through a protracted FOI review request that allows another 20 days. It seems they are very reluctant to answer questions.

We received our latest protracted response on Tuesday, which confirms Inverclyde Council entered the joint venture (JV) by accepting Peel Ports' insistence that the Inchgreen Dry Dock should be omitted from the control of Inchgreen Marine Park Ltd (IMPL).

Why didn’t our councillors stipulate that the provision of public money would only be forthcoming when Inchgreen Dry Dock was included in the JV? That would have allowed the council to push and pressurise Peel to release their stranglehold on our national asset.

However, there is no stipulation in the JV agreement to safeguard our national asset from any company that acquires the lease of the platers' shed and surrounding area blocking the dry dock becoming fully operational.

This omission has highlighted the complete failure of the council negotiating team to secure our national asset for our communities' future.

The council and IMPL state that future lease holders will receive preferential rates for the use of the dry dock. However, control of the dry dock firmly remains with Peel Ports, who have allowed the facility and its infrastructure to deteriorate for the last 21 years.

This pronouncement of preferential rates does not fill us with confidence while Peel controls IMPL as the puppet master pulling the strings.

In our opinion, Inverclyde councillors have been negligent and naive in monitoring the development of IMPL and the lack of foresight in protecting our national asset. We wonder how many have taken the time to read the document registering the 75-year IMPL joint venture at Companies House?

That document states at the termination of IMPL, all assets will be inherited by Clydeport/Peel Ports. By then, those that signed this shocking deal on behalf of the people of Inverclyde will be long gone.

Why did council leader and IMPL chairman Stephen McCabe, and councillor and IMPL director Chris Curley, rush to hand over the deeds of AP Jess plot to Clydeport, donating £300,000 of public money, when the transfer was guaranteed anyway?

Both Cllr McCabe and council director Stuart Jamieson went to great lengths to confirm that the full council approved this £300,000 donation, and had full knowledge of the AP Jess plot being handed to Peel Ports, while allowing the dry dock to be omitted from the JV, and no thought of protecting the dry dock.

Councillors will no doubt close ranks as they’re all implicated in this agreement, and in the disastrous strategy that has not attracted any blue chip company to date, while the dry dock lies empty and unprotected. An abysmal record of incompetence.

Councillor McCabe will no doubt blame our campaign for the apparent lack of interest but any serious company looking to move to IMPL will surely see beyond the council’s magic smoke and mirrors and appreciate that our interest is very much about creating jobs by protecting all of our industrial heritage.

Robert Buirds (Secretary, Campaign to Save Inchgreen Dry Dock)