Many years ago, when Glasgow was suffering from its historic decline in industry, there arose the idea that to be forward looking change had to be embraced. Although the change was not one most people wished, as in the Union of Parliaments, change was enthusiastically imported from southern ideaology and promoted in that city. As the dockside and shipyard cranes tumbled and the great mercantile river was reduced to a port no greater than a small coastal town’s, vast swathes of land became barren and wasted. Formerly much of this was held in public trust in the shape of the Clyde Port Authority. What happened next was a classic template that has been copied down the years and we are all familiar with – the deliberate running down of a utility and its assetts to render them only fit for sale to anyone with the money for any purpose other than leaving it fallow. I call this Clydeportation. The very people who oversaw the decline of the Clyde and the wasting of its properties became the new owners. Within a short time the whole lot was sold off, and is now owned by a massive PRIVATE ports and PROPERTY group. It barely functions on the upper river as a harbour at all. A thing our forefathers would have found not only astonishing but criminal. Many made fortunes, and so too have property developers and now the Clyde is for the most part less of an industrial powerhouse (although shipyards remain and docks at Sheildhall, these are but a shadow of what went before) and more of an investment opportunity, the pressures now not ones of productive energy but speculative property. This is now what appears to be happening on our Leven’s banks at Balloch. Just as offshoring creates confusion of ownership, so too does the passage of lands from public hands through agencies and quasi-public organisations create a smoke-screen that enables former trust lands to be passed into private, there to realise the end-goal of fortunes to be made. To do this, you have to create the notion that the lands to be hived off are worthless at best, and a degenerated drain on the public purse at worse. You ensure people do not fall in love with it. A build up of this narrative of putting down the lands of Drumkinnon and the River Leven’s banks have more or less successfully entered the public and indeed national consciousness. The area has been described as a haunt of undesirables, as a tip, as scrubland, wasteland, industrially contaminated land, as an eyesore, a blight, an underdeveloped wasted potential. This narrative may be partially true, otherwise these claims could never be made, but they are partial to the point of blatantly insulting our intelligence. Just as someone reading a quote gets the worst idea of a human being, so too these descriptions are magnified ‘quotes’ out of all context and not a representation of fact at all. Let us take the river itself and its banks. The river for very long was indeed rather unsightly, although to many it had its own ‘character’. For years boats that had not been tended or whose owners had passed away, sank at their moorings, littering the west side of the river with sad remnants of former happy times. But the moorings were nonetheless well used. In latter years the boat owners, clubs and authorities, installed pontoons and now it is a cleaned up riverbank and a colourful if slightly too regimented part of our local rich tapestry. Further along to the north as the moorings end is a small sandy beach, used for generations of locals and tourists alike and a strip of riverbank largely overgrown that runs to the pier and along the sandstone workings of the former railway. This is indeed a place that could be cleaned up a little, but it takes no more than a squad of workers to do so, perhaps a weeks solid work. It has largely been left the way it is for many many years. A tip it isn’t but a slightly ragged overgrown stretch in need of some assistance it is. Our local community council could easily raise the funds to do it if minded or encouraged. Anyone could. At times people have been seen drinking here, but on the scale of things, it is no big deal. Whatsoever. A sense of this being neglected draws the odd drinking buddies, but to call this a problem in itself is not only fanciful but downright scurrility. The truth is the area is too well used by locals and visitors for anyone wishing to partake of an outside bevvy session, the area has many places far more suited to that activity, well away from the public gaze! So the only problem with the riverbank is rather too many overgrown trees and lack of guardianship, both of these could easily be remedied and indeed should be as a matter of course. Turning to the woods, these are described as overgrown remnants of scrubland, Utter nonsense. Such complete nonsense all I have to do is refer you to the maps of the ages down and you will see these woods as being completely separate from the factory that stood to their south, No more need be said on this, because to do so is to validate utter lies. Elsewhere in these lands we have a strip of open green between the wooded riverbank and the Pier Road. They are not anything magnificent, but they are well kept, clean, open grasslands much used by families, playing with a ball, having picnics and nearly always in sunshine a happy place filled with people. On more dismal days they are used by dog walkers throwing sticks for their pooches. Again, not a wasteland – these are recovered lands from the railways that were ripped up many years ago and sweetened. We turn now to the Pierhead. This area houses car parking and a turnaround for vehicles accessing the Maid of the Loch, the Park Authority buildings and public slipway, the old steam slipway and cradle and the last remnants this side of the man-made lagoon of the former Drumkinnon Bay. Plus car parks. All of the car parks fill with vehicles as people come to use the slipway for powerboats and canoes, to visit the Maid or the Park Authority visitor centre. At all times vibrant and filled with people coming and going the area is hugely popular, encompassing the fine viewpoint where of late many a romance is sparked or confirmed as people take in the unparallelled view, for free. On sunny days this tiny bay teems with happy families, building sandcastles, paddling, swimming, as people have done now for generations. It is an infectiously happy place, open, free and always a delight to walk through, to take photos, or merely soak in the gorgeous aspect and the happy scenes around you. To decry this area would be a monumental feat, it is impossible to downcry, so, it is never mentioned at all. In the rest of the 44 acres, we largely have the shore of the lagoon, used well by local boathirers and a scene of intense happiness just as you see in postcards all down the ages. The remainder of the land is carparks and pockets of lands bordering the old Luss Road. So, what you can be clear about is that this sale is of the above I describe. Not wastelands, not contaminated, not depressing places filled with drunks, not magnets for vandalism or improper use and most certainly not underused factory wastelands. Quite the opposite. But this part of our district also serves one hugely important function. It provides a link to the rest of the village on foot and by car and vehicle via the pier road, and of course its riverbank. It is very much now, much more than in the past, a living breathing vital part of Balloch’s commonwealth and provides the village with constant through traffic. The above is the truth. What you have been told is a narrative, a Clydeportation preamble to justify a wholly unjustifiable sell off of a huge tract of our township’s lands, and a dangerous precursor to profiteering, cutting off our open free character and diminishing us all, and even worse, denying our generations of visitors the very wonderful access to a series of natural and low key attractions they already enjoy. To be replaced by a massive cordoning off, a gating off, and 100 lodges and private gardens. Join our voice, demand the government reigns this in and looks at it again from a position of scrutiny, accountability and the public good. Balloch needs you, over 6000 people, most of them local, have raised their voice, please help us raise it ever higher and tell the world: this is your Balloch as much as ours and it is not for sale.