1/  I am astounded that Cllr Wilson cannot understand why there is "scaremongering" regarding the school capacity in Inverkip and Wemyss Bay should the new housing development go ahead at the Inverkip Power Station site. He says the figures show that there are sufficient places. Can I just remind Cllr Wilson of the track record on facts and figures (Clydeview Academy) produced by successive councils. Having worked within childcare in Inverclyde until recently, I am not convinced that Inverclyde Council's figures in this area are correct. Does he remember that Inverkip Primary has been extended "piecemeal" over the past 15 years and that the playground has shrunk as a result?

The council rolls out plans for housing but continually fails to understand that the houses being built are for families. Not one-bedroom flats for up and coming professionals. I have watched the destruction of Inverkip over the last 25 years, as it continues its journey towards housing estate status. A once thriving community has been reduced to a place where people come home to sleep and no longer participate in community life. The few community-minded villagers that remain are weary and need reinforced with new blood. I doubt that shoving up hundreds of houses in the no man’s land between Inverkip and Wemyss Bay will contribute to this.

Cllr Wilson, come and knock on a few doors and listen to the people who know. Remember that although it may look good on paper, the cold, hard reality may be quite different. Finally, where will the cars or buses transporting the new children to Inverkip park? Traffic cannot move around the school at certain times of the day because of the congestion. I dread to think what the future holds.

Inverkip Resident

2/  What amazes me about this proposal is where all these buyers are coming from. I believe there are already houses in Inverkip that cannot be sold because of lack of buyers. The infrastructure is just not there either to cope with the extra people they seem to expect. New schools will be a must, new shops, new doctor surgeries, new play areas, anything that a small town needs because that is exactly what this will be.

Name Supplied

3/  I feel physically sick when I think of the new Inverkip development. What about the roads? Congestion? Schools? Are they increasing community policing? Is there enough ambulance and fire cover? This is not to solve housing problems or regenerate -- this is purely about lining pockets and people making money.....what’s next? Flats at Cornalees? A nightclub in Ardgowan estate?

From a concerned resident

4/  I agree with all above comments. For a start, I was a first-time buyer from Inverkip four years ago and had to look elsewhere as all properties were way out of my price range. I still couldn't afford to move back home today, where I have family, as this hasn't changed. Inverkip has become a desert wi' windaes. I think that we have become over the years a dumping ground for houses. Put them there and let's merge with Wemyss Bay while we're at it.

There have been no real provisions made for the rapidly rising population. The school has been extended over the years - what a mess and loss of space. There's been a mini-supermarket, cafe and creche built (and no development of the tennis court!) yet this caused the newsagents to close, which many miss. Older people, for example, are now much further away and rely on others to help them buy basic items. The doctor's surgery is no longer. The church is low in numbers I think partly because there is no permanent minister to attract new members but also because former members like me have moved away as we cannot afford housing of our own to own, not rent. It has become a place of money, because of the rich or long/well established being the only ones able to afford to stay there. As Inverkip Resident says, people are not mixing and community is no longer.

What about the roads/traffic? I know a family member has to leave well before 8am just to get to work at 9am as there is always a massive queue at IBM which snakes at snail's pace into town. Everyone has cars now and therefore this is a very obvious concern. People speed round that road to Wemyss Bay and back as though there's an emergency or a race, so there is an accident blackspot waiting to happen. It took years to fix the junction in/out of Inverkip and construct the Bankfoot roundabout, and there were many accidents.

What about the fact that there seems to be a constant threat to our medical services at the IRH? What do we do then?

There was a protest when the power station went up, and no one listened and look how that turned out. I don't see what the problem is with returning land to greenbelt. Why do we have to use every inch of it? I am still so so angry at the Ardgowan Rise development and the demise of the Guide campsite. All these estates look the same; we'll turn into Australia and get lost in them (at least we could find some space).

And another thing, since houses are all that matters these days, I wonder what will become of IBM's land? (or has someone staked a claim to it already?)

I think to congest an already congested part of central Scotland is madness. People moved to Inverkip and surrounding areas to escape the crowds at the loss of convenience to an extent. Now everyone wants a piece, and fair enough, but we're giving it to them and losing the whole point, as it's all about money, not appreciating the countryside. Leaving things alone is not a bad thing - it can preserve for future generations.

Councillors if reading, please respond and let us know you're listening. And yes, please knock on the doors and ask residents before making decisions. We pay our taxes.
I think I'll visit Kilmacolm and see what they're doing up there.

A former but still very concerned resident (I could be anyone, there are so many of us now)

5/  The development of Inverkip into a sprawl of housing estates with very little planning in respect of roads, schooling, services, public amenities and shops is typical of the Inverclyde Council planning deptartment. The more land laid over to housing, the more revenue can be extracted in the form of council tax. This is especially fruitful when house builders are constructing four and five-bedroom detached homes which attract a high banding and thus provide higher income to the council.

The power station site lies within an area that would be better used as  regeneration area in terms of our local wildlife and habitat, which in recent years has been decimated by both Stewart Milne and Redrow in Inverkip.

The common sound of owls at night has all but disappeared as has the sight of bats during the summer nights. Spey Road is a terrible mess with pot holes because of the huge amount of heavy lorries, plant and extra load of cars using it for the new developments behind the train station and yet neither the council roads deptartment or Stewart Milne have carried out any satisfactory repairs. How on earth is anybody to believe the council have weighed up every argument other than just that of revenue when the area is at the moment just treated as a cash cow?

In a nutshell, the reason I had to have a ramp to my conservatory when I don't need one is because the planners are very wise and one day I might sell my house. This is the same mindset that has decided it is ok to have an overcrowded village with insufficient public amenities and insufficient roads and infrastructure to handle the traffic safely and efficiently.

The local council really do need to look inwards and get back to the grass roots of what they do. They should be working in the interests of the people and the scenic areas of natural beauty they have been privileged enough to be allowed to manage; not in the interests of large house builders who can pretty much sway any council decision with promised improvements and large sums of cash.

Listen to the people of Inverclyde for a change and act on their behalf, it's your job, it's what you promised before elections and it's what's expected of you!

Inverkip resident

6/  I'm reading through the previous comments about the new development at Inverkip Power Station and boredom has compelled me to comment. It's the same rubbish we hear time and again from a very vocal minority in Inverkip. "We can't have this!", "You can't do that!" "Change?! Progress?! over my dead body!"

I'm really sick of these people representing everyone. The community council is run by a group of outraged comedy stereotypes and I'm sure that most of these comments come from them. Trust me when I say there are a core of about 10 people in the village who object to everything, no one else cares enough to speak up.

An example -- the Leapmoor wind farm proposal that was shot down on grounds of noise pollution. The development was three miles from the village! The community council, to this day, represent the people of Inverkip in areas all over Scotland, lending their knowledge of fighting wind farm developments to anyone who will listen. They recently helped block a wind farm in the north of Scotland. I hope their grandchildren, years from now, can find another way of powering their laptops so they can email Inverclyde Now.

They complain about a lack of infrastructure, then campaign against any major works. They moan about the safety of the Main Street but refuse to discuss the possibility of it being one-way. They lobby against progress and leave local buildings as rotting eyesores. It's short-sightedness pure and simple. A blinkered ideology that hangs on to the past at the expense of the future.

Inverclyde Council have a proposal to build a new community centre in Inverkip, with a gym and sports hall, a development which is sorely needed, especially after the destruction of the pavilion in the recent storms. I await, with bated breath, for the torrent of objections to this new development.

Fed up Inverkip resident

7/  From what I've heard, they are planning to build the community centre at the top of Langhouse Road. If that's true, it couldn't be built in a worse place. I hope common sense applies and it's built on the old pavilion site. Oh and I'll jump on the bandwagon too --we don't need more houses at the power station. Anyone with half an ounce of common sense should be able to recognise that. For a councillor to say that schools won't become overcrowded, you're probably right. Who will be able to afford the houses anyway?

Inverkip resident

8/  Even if the crystal ball figures so triumphantly touted by Councillor Wilson turn out to be correct (and I very much doubt they will), they cannot be used in isolation to "tick the education box" and justify planning approval for more houses in Inverkip. The "safe route to school" box also needs to be ticked and that is a much bigger, more important and more challenging box to tick.

Any children coming from houses at the power station site will not be magically beamed to and from Inverkip Primary School every day - they will need to get across the soon-to-be even busier A78 road without the aid of a footbridge. Yes, there is a footbridge nearby, but it is beyond the school and will add another 600 metres to the journey, so nobody will use it to get to the school for that reason. We all know that most of these children will be driven to school and back again by parents who, quite rightly, will not want to risk the lives of their children on this road.

The street plan around Inverkip School and Main Street was designed in the 19th century with horses and carts in mind. The pavements are narrow or non-existent, especially around the school gates (Finnockbog Road has a pavement on one side only, Station Avenue has a pavement on one side only, Fran Terrace has a pavement on one side only and Station Road has one and a half pavements, the half being at the school gate). The area is already grid-locked at school times and will not cope with the additional road traffic that these children will generate. The safety railing at the junction of Station Road and Main Street is repeatedly damaged by traffic at school times.

The school is effectively at the entrance to a giant cul-de-sac with around a hundred houses in it. A school-run car which passes the school gate must pass it again to get out, resulting in three point turns being attempted at junctions where children are trying to cross safely. Many residents in the 100 houses no longer even attempt to drive past the school at peak times. Users of the railway station are often caught in the melee and to make matters worse, have nowhere to park once they eventually reach the station.

Inverkip is now a perfect example of bad town planning, showing what happens when multiple housing developments are considered and approved in isolation, without proper thought being given to the bigger picture, over a 25-year period. There are three main modern housing areas in the village; Swallow Brae, Hill Farm and Kip Marina Village -- but there are no direct roads connecting these to each other, which results in a lot of unnecessary traffic using Main Street and the aforementioned soon-to-be even busier A78. There are now houses in Inverkip which are 200 metres apart, but which require a five-kilometre drive via the A78 to get from one to the other.

Inverclyde Council and successive developers have succeeded in turning Inverkip into a township with no heart and they are about to add an extra limb. In addition to a nice school which is well nigh impossible for children to reach safely, what will the residents of this new limb get in return for their council tax money when they come to Inverkip? They will get many soulless housing estates just like their own. If they are lucky, they will get a nice view of the river from their living room window. They will get no community facilities, they will get no public hall, they will get no sports facilities, they will get no doctor's surgery, they will get a railway station with inadequate parking (despite the current development there), but with a shiny new bridge with a lift to serve the one train to Glasgow per hour.

Yes, as stated above, it's all about money. People and their quality of life don't enter into the planning process (other than as numbers in a propaganda speech). The landowners, developers and those in their employ will line their pockets and the council will welcome the additional council tax income, just as they did with the Hill Farm land swap deal in 2004.

I am not against a housing development at the power station site, but proper consideration must be given to the effect that it will have on the existing local infrastructure (or lack thereof) and actions must be included in any planning approval to ensure that the situation in the centre of Inverkip is improved, or at the very least, not worsened.

I challenge Councillor Wilson and the Education Committee to come to Inverkip Primary School at closing time any afternoon to witness the gridlock that I refer to above, in order to enable them to make a more informed decision about the ability of that school to absorb a further 67 pupils. Perhaps they might visit on a wet and windy day and make the walk from the power station site, via the footbridge to the school?

Concerned Inverkip Resident

9/  With all due respect to Fed up Inverkip resident [Comment Six], why should we "trust" you if the rest of your rant is as inaccurate as your geography? Did you pull the three miles figure out of a hat, or did you get it from some so-called expert? Maybe you should have stated it in kilometres, then you would have had an even bigger number with which to try to con the public next time you get bored.

Checking Community Windpower's plans against Ordnance Survey maps, the nearest turbine would have been just over half a mile from the houses in Forres Place. The furthest turbine would have been around one mile away from the same houses. Even the furthest away turbine would still have been within two miles of the houses at the farthest end of Kip Marina Village. By spreading such misinformation you are doing a disservice to the democratic process that you seem to care so much about (but ridicule those who choose to participate in at grass roots level).

For the record, I supported the wind farm proposal and that support was based on facts and research - not the sort of misinformation that you just tried to present as facts to influence those who sit on the fence. I also support the power station development, on condition that the A78 capacity and the Main Street and school access problems are addressed.

I am not a member or a supporter of Inverkip and Wemyss Bay Community Council (far from it), neither am I a member of any other village group - except perhaps your core of 10, if we are to believe that such a small group exists. I think it is much larger than that if the turnout at the January Community Council meeting can be used as a yardstick. Also, let us not forget the 1000-plus locals who signed the petition, or the 186 who wrote letters of objection against the 2004 land swap deal which went ahead anyway.

I'm afraid you are the short sighted and blinkered one, willing to accept "progress" at any cost. If you want to see a "rotting eyesore" of a building, take your blinkers off and go take a look at the "new" flats on the site of the petrol station. They are a disgusting mess with black, brown and green stains on the outside, a blight on the Main Street conservation area. The new development at Kip Park is also showing signs of premature ageing. That is what happens when people like you sit back and criticise people like me who only want the best for our village. I do not purport to be "representing everyone", but you appear to be trying to do just that for your so called core of 10.

Hopefully you are as vociferous towards Inverclyde Council Planning Department as you are towards Inverclyde Now readers and are not just another of the "no one else cares enough to speak up" brigade that you seem to think you live amongst.

As for the new community centre, it has been a talking shop for at least the past ten years, my children have grown into teenagers waiting for it to happen. I hope it goes ahead, but it will be sad to see the football pitch lost as I use it regularly and have no interest in using a gym. I also happen to believe that it is in the wrong place, at the extreme north end of the village - it should be up the hill, where most villagers now live - but that's a separate issue.

Concerned Inverkip Resident

10/  Dear Fed Up Inverkip Resident [Comment Six] who is bored. It is a shame that you don't share our very valid views. However I'm glad you decided to speak up, when no one else apparently does. Well done! If you are so put out by these 'ten', why don't you join them if you can't beat them? The more the merrier.

What rotting buildings (plural) are we talking about exactly, out of interest? The Pavilion? I agree with the comment about the flats at the garage. I think the garage was better in many ways! At least we had petrol on tap without having to go to Wemyss Bay or Branchton. I can't believe that we have less facilities now than in the not so distant past. Inverkip 800, if anyone remembers that, was about when I came to the village and we had lots of stuff going on and a true community spirit, but with more than 2,000 people (no idea the true figure) I'm amazed the church and other groups aren't bursting at the seams, therefore producing a demand that cannot be ignored for new services and facilities, instead of having to put up with existing ones or bypassing them altogether and going to Greenock/elsewhere. If you move you should at least TRY to integrate!

If anyone from the community council IS reading, can we have a meeting in the church hall (do we even use this now?) to discuss Inverkip's future? Perhaps many don't know that there are meetings, if there are meetings. I don't. We could take the minutes to someone at the council's regeneration and planning department. They might not listen, but it would be nice to get together as many as possible and really talk about it. If we can show the council that we have solid ideas, then that would surely look that bit better than just providing them with signatures (which is good also). It shows we stand as a community, can take charge and that we want to help MAKE decisions, not just go along with them. We live here, we have invested our money here and here we should want to stay.

Just to put your mind at rest Fed Up, I am not from the community council. I am a young person who is truly concerned and it's nice to have a place to air opinions. I'm glad so many others have made such valid comments. However I am intrigued. I simply must find out who these 'ten' are. I didn't know Inverkip has such a hierarchy. I only lived there for 20 years - perhaps it is that I am not so paranoid. I think it's safe to assume that, should our community centre be built, I won't come across you in it, as you don't seem very community minded.

A former but still very concerned resident, once more.

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