Periods
Clydebank, 1980-Present day
By Martin Docherty
With the emergence of the Scottish Development Agency as a major economic force in Clydebank in the early 1980s, the process of reconsidering the role of heavy industry in the town began.
Economic Re-organisation
The closure of the Singer Factory and reduction in the size of the capacity of the former Clydebank Shipyard, by then owned by the French company UIE (Union Industrielle et d'Enterprise), had forced the new Conservative government in London to evaluate its role in promoting economic development and stability in the Clydebank area. The Conservatives differed from previous administrations by reducing or removing entirely the government subsidy of private industry, and by beginning the privatisation of state-owned firms. They saw Clydebank as a testing ground for new ideas. An SDA Task Force was set up in February 1981 to develop the Clydebank Business Park on the former Singer Factory site and undertake environmental improvements including landscaping and stone-cleaning. The Clydebank Enterprise Zone, the first in Scotland, was created in August 1981 to attract and encourage the growth of new industries.
Local Government
Scottish local government was reorganised in 1975 to create two tiers of local government, the district and regional authorities. Clydebank District Council operated within Strathclyde Region, and Strathclyde Regional Council assumed control of roads, public transport, and issues such as social work. The Region covered the western half of the country from Ayrshire to Oban and the Western Isles as well as the city of Glasgow. As Glasgow was also suffering heavily from the industrial collapse of the late 1970s it relied heavily upon the Regional Council, many would say to the detriment of surrounding areas.
The Regional authorities were abolished in 1996 and replaced with unitary authorities. West Dunbartonshire Council was formed by amalgamating Clydebank and Dumbarton District Councils. Clydebank has the largest population in the new council area and holds the majority of council seats. Yet Bankies are aware that it is not political boundaries that make them Bankies and they continue to be proud of their town and heritage.
Emotional, Social and Physical Change
The changes that have taken place since 1980 removed once and for all the reliance on heavy industry and government to which people had become accustomed. Clydebank then began to see considerable changes in its social structure as well as physical environment. Unemployment rates soared, reaching and surpassing those of the 1930s, and levels of mental illness grew to unprecedented levels. Debt became a major issue which created an enormous headache for local voluntary organisations such as the Clydebank Citizens Advice Bureau, founded in the 1940s. The Dalmuir Credit Union, the first in Scotland, was founded to counter issues such as debt, and was another example of action by the community for the community. There was a rise in grass roots activism and in 2005 Clydebank can boast over 400 voluntary organisations assisting in the rejuvenation of the town.
Since the 1940s Scotland, like much of the UK, had been undergoing major physical change. The landscape and geography known to the previous generation was altered in a more profound manner than had even been previously experienced, even more than during the Blitz of 1941. The Singer Factory was demolished shortly after its closure with only a few units remaining. Dumbarton Road and Central Clydebank saw the destruction of many of the properties that had survived the Blitz, to allow for the extension of the Clydeside Express Way - a scheme which had already resulted in the demolition of huge swathes of Scotstoun in western Glasgow. It is interesting to note that the extension was never built and new tenements have begun to appear in Dalmuir and central Clydebank, a development in which the Dalmuir Park and Clydebank Housing Associations have played a prominent role.
But large areas of housing were not the only losers. Vast tracts of industrial land were cleared. The Clyde Regional Shopping Centre, at the time the largest shopping centre in Scotland, was built on the site of the old Singer Lye. The centre was widely criticised by some Bankies due to the lack of a roof; an understandable complaint especially when a westerly gale came up the Clyde. Eventually, some twenty years after its construction, a roof was put in place during a refurbishment programme in 2003 and the shopping centre is the fifth-most visited in Scotland.
Further demolition had already taken place in Whitecrook, here the former Elgin Street School had disappeared, as did the main section of the UCBS biscuit factory. The entire eastern section of John Knox Street shared the same fate in the late 1990s. Since then the area has been home to small business work units.
Emotionally, many Bankies regretted losing Clydebank FC. The club had represented the town in the Scottish Football League since 1963, playing for several years in the 1st Division and briefly in the Premier League, giving the late Davie Cooper to the game and once getting to the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup. Sadly, the club went out of business and its place in the Scottish Football League was taken by Airdrie United FC in 2002. Yet the club has been resurrected as a junior club, winning Division 2 of the Central District League and promotion to Division 1 in its first season, 2003-2004.
John Brown Engineering
Throughout the 1980s, because of the cyclical nature of the industrial gas turbine industry, power engineering companies like John Brown Engineering regularly experienced significant downturns in work when gas turbine orders were particularly hard to come by. By the early 1990s, however, the company (which had become part of the Trafalgar House conglomerate) was enjoying a period of enormous growth and profitability. After 1994, however, a succession of loss-making contracts resulted in the company withdrawing from major power projects. In 1999, some three years after Trafalgar House was taken over by Kvaerner, a Norwegian multi-national, the Clydebank Works were put up for sale. Thereafter, parts of the business were acquired by General Electric of America. The remaining Manufacturing Division was closed down and the site sold for re-development in 2001.
HCI
One of the most controversial issues faced by Clydebank District Council in the late 1980s was a planning application by Health Care International (Scotland) to build a £180 million state-of-the-art private hospital on the site of the former Dalmuir Naval Construction Works at Dalmuir. Opponents of the application (and there were many) were generally either concerned about the health hazard to local residents in building on a site heavily contaminated with asbestos and other industrial waste, or that the private hospital would have an adverse effect on the National Health Service. Despite these concerns, in October 1988 Clydebank District Council narrowly approved the planning application by seven votes to five, and three years later the project was formally launched by the then Secretary of State, Ian Lang. The HCI Hospital was finally opened in March 1994. On 28 June 2002, the ailing hospital was bought for £37.5 million, transferred to the National Health Service and re-named the National Golden Jubilee Hospital.
The Future
The greatest physical change to the town began in 2001 when Clydeside Regeneration Ltd acquired the sites of the Clydebank Shipyard and John Brown Engineering for redevelopment. Acres of land last open to the skies nearly a century and a half ago came back into view, with only the Titan Crane (Clydebank's only Grade A listed structure) remaining. This was brought about by the local redevelopment organisation, Clydebank Re-built Ltd. The majority of the land however remains in private hands and looks like becoming home to major redevelopment with educational, housing, business and leisure facilities, including a marina, which is taking us into a new stage in Clydebank's history.