RESIDENTS with an eye for good photography are being sought to help community councillors develop a Vision for Helensburgh.

The town’s Community Council [HCC] is inviting photographic contributions towards its ‘A Vision for Helensburgh’ project as it aims to help improve the town.

At a meeting of Helensburgh and Lomond Community Planning Group on Thursday, August 8, HCC’s Norman McNally revealed underwhelming feedback via public surveys conducted using the Internet and paper forms.

He also told the meeting, which took place in the town’s Commodore Hotel, that the town is viewed as a commuter area above everything else, including the Navy.

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The study does aim to help improve the town centre, which was the subject of a consultation exercise by Ice Cream Architecture last year, but also aims to assist in other parts of the town.

Norman said: “A small team has been tasked to develop a Vision for Helensburgh, but we are still developing what we are doing.

“We have four HCC members and one co-opted member, and we work with other organisations in Helensburgh, including the Chamber of Commerce.

“We have discovered that the best way to get feedback is face to face. Having things online, or giving out visitor feedback forms, is less than rewarding.

“We have had feedback forms here in the Commodore Hotel since May, and the number of responses we have had is just under one.

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“Our research boundaries are of course in Helensburgh, but it is not just the town centre area, which was the remit of Ice Cream Architecture.

“So far, we have discovered that Helensburgh is mostly an overnight town. A big proportion of tourism is people coming to see the Hill House.

“I quote from one piece of feedback – we arrived at 3pm one day and left at 10am the next day.

“At the moment, Helensburgh seems mostly viewed as a commuter town, with a Navy town a close second.”

Postcard-sized leaflets were distributed at the meeting, encouraging photographic contributions to go towards a public event during the autumn.

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Photographers are encouraged to snap their impressions of what makes Helensburgh special and will create a rich record of the town’s setting and community.

Norman added: “We’ve been encouraging people to send in photos of Helensburgh the way visitors see it, and also of Helensburgh in reality.

“There are some things that residents of the town will not notice once they have lived in it for a while, but visitors do.”

Images for the project must be submitted in jpeg format and correspondents, who must supply their name, can submit no more than 10 pictures.

They can be sent to visionforhelensburgh@gmail.com