Access to the water at Coronation Park – Public Consultation

Hi Everyone,

The Gourock pierhead beach has been saved and access there will be improved with a new slipway, a ‘milling around’ area and an area to unload & load boats. This only happened because watersports users submitted comments during the public consultation phase of the development. Otherwise the possiblity of launching or landing at this important safety egress would have been lost forever, replaced by huge ‘shore defence’ rocks.

Project 6 of the Port Glasgow Development is an upgrade of the Coronation Park. The crumbling slipway is mentioned, but it doesn’t state whether it will be removed or improved, or what will happen with the existing beach.

I need your help if we are to retain access to the water at Coronation Park. This year, the RWSABC took over 150 people out for ‘Try Rowing’ sessions from the slipway there as part of the Comet Festival. The existing beach is also used by small craft, eg kayaks. There are many vertical sea walls in the surrounding area, making this access point a safety egress. The tide can also be fairly strong there. The access point is listed with the planning department as a Public Right of Way.

I emailed Riverside Inverclyde (RI) regarding access to the water as part of the development and the reply was “The plans have not yet been finalised and I welcome your comments so I can take account of them in the design…”

The Port Glasgow development is now in the Public Consultation phase. If we want to retain water access near the centre of Port Glasgow, we must submit our comments. During the public consultation for the Gourock development, I was told by RI that ‘numbers of comments matter’ and this proved to be true.

The form can be downloaded from here in Word format:
http://www.riversideinverclyde.com/news-and-archives/2011-port-glasgow-town-centre-environmental-improvements.html

We only need to answer question 3:
“3. Do you agree with the proposal to upgrade Coronation Park?
Please comment on which areas do you feel require improvement: ”

Then email the form to Geoff.Gregory@riversideinverclyde.com before 30th Nov.

Five minutes of your time to do this will ensure that access to/from the water near the centre of Port Glasgow is retained (and hopefully improved) for ourselves, visitors and future generations.

Please let me know if you’ve submitted comments so that I have an idea of numbers and likely impact.

Thanks for your support,
Lorna McCartney
Watersports Rep, Inverclyde Local Access Forum