Stop the Supermarket - Save our Waterfront

Help us mount a legal challenge to Argyll and Bute Council’s supermarket decision

Helensburgh Community Council needs your help in opposing Argyll and Bute Council’s decision to put a supermarket on the town’s waterfront. The community has repeatedly opposed supermarkets on this site over the past 30 years.

Over 4000 people have signed our petition opposing a supermarket on the waterfront since Argyll and Bute Council announced they had approved a supermarket developer for the site on August 15th.

Argyll and Bute Council have not listened to the community over the past year and continue to ignore the town’s opposition to their decision. Council meetings, where key decisions have been made about the supermarket's site, have been held in secret. Questions from the public have gone unanswered. Requests for meetings with Councillors have been ignored. The leader of the Council also refused to meet with the Community Council.

However, we can oppose Argyll and Bute Council's decision on the supermarket's site with a legal challenge. We have not come to this decision lightly, but the strength of community concern and opposition needs to be heard by Argyll and Bute Council. By stopping the process now we could prevent Argyll and Bute Council entering a time consuming and expensive planning process that may ultimately be referred to the Scottish Reporter for a decision anyway (which was how a supermarket application in 2000 was rejected).

We know this is an expensive process and, at a time when money is tight, we know it will be hard to raise money for the costs that this will incur. We are aware of other cases, such as the local campaign for St Fittick’s Park in Aberdeen and the costs in these cases are around £30,000.

The money raised through this crowdfunder will be used by Helensburgh Community Council for:

If we are successful in opposing this supermarket development then we will work with the community to enable a Community Asset Transfer so that the waterfront can stay in public hands. The community can then create a space which can be used by all our residents and visitors.

Any money raised which is not required after the conclusion of the legal proceedings will be distributed to the following causes:

We have set ourselves a target of 10th November to raise the necessary funds, which will allow time to raise a judicial review.

We are grateful for any contribution you can make to this cause.