A HELENSBURGH charity set up to celebrate the town’s high achievers of the past, and to encourage future generations to follow in their footsteps, has moved to quash social media speculation about its future.

The Helensburgh Heroes Centre in Sinclair Street, and its 1950s-style cafe, Hucksters, has been closed since early October, and a post appeared on a local Facebook group at the weekend from a Burgh resident who “heard that Helensburgh Heroes in Sinclair St, will now not open back up at all”.

In response, Helensburgh Heroes director Phil Worms told the Advertiser: “Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.

“Helensburgh Heroes is continuing. We can’t trade at that building until a number of issues have been resolved but a great deal of work is going on behind the scenes and we hope to be in a position to give a full update soon.”

The Sinclair Street centre opened to the public in December 2017, and the new cafe followed early this year.

But the charity announced in October that following construction work at the rear of the centre, the premises would have to be closed “until we have confirmation from the relevant authorities that the recent modifications meet all current health and safety regulations”.

In a statement on the charity’s website the Helensburgh Heroes team said: “We can’t allow anything to potentially compromise the health and safety of our team and visitors whilst on our premises.”

“We hope that you will understand and apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment that this may cause you.”

Following the weekend’s social media speculation Mr Worms added: “We literally can’t open the premises for the reasons we’ve explained before.

"However we are still busy on other projects, such as our new book in memory of local suffragette and activist Eunice Guthrie Murray.”

That project, ‘Women of All Ages’, called on women from Helensburgh and the surrounding area to contribute 100 articles about different inspirational female role models.

The results, titled ‘To The Women Of All Ages By Women Of All Ages’ – a nod to the dedication of Eunice Guthrie Murray’s 1930 book ‘Scottish Women of Bygone Days’ – is due to be launched in Helensburgh in January.