Visit to Helensburgh by a Delegation from Le Taillan, Bordeaux, France

AN ASTOUNDING SUCCESS!

A delegation of seven from Le Taillan-Medoc (pop 10,000) , in the heart of France’s Bordeaux classic red wine growing region visited Helensburgh from 15 -22April 2023 staying at the Riva Boutique Hotel on West Clyde Street. Very comfortable and its Scottish Breakfast was rated as Formidable.

Since 2020 Helensburgh Community Council (HCC) has been in discussion with Mayor’s office in Le Taillan on building a strong relationship between our two towns with its genesis given below, under “ Ties with Le Taillan, Bordeaux” France. The visit of the delegation was most timely. As well as showcasing all Helensburgh has to offer we were able to explore opportunities for exchanges of young people, sports teams, language initiatives, business ties, joint projects and more. The recent opening of direct Easyjet flights between Glasgow and Bordeaux, from July to September, 2023 (advance fares from £39 one way) is an added bonus.

This is how the visit unfolded:

SATURDAY The visit started with a Ceilidh at the Civic Centre that evening. The Delegation fully participated in the dancing, and even playing the French equivalent of a bag pipe accompanied by group dancing similar to Scottish reels. All to a standing ovation.

SUNDAY began with a walk through the ‘Blossom trees’ in Helensburgh guided by Stewart Noble, Helensburgh’s Historian. The tour ending with a well -earned ice cream sundae at Dinos. The subsequent walk round the Hill House inside its iconic box literally took their breath away They were most impressed by the efforts being made to restore this world class domestic dwelling to its original condition.

MONDAY: the Delegation paid a visit to Hermitage Academy, where they were royally treated to a Guard of Honour by the pupils from Classes 3 and 4, studying French. They were shown round the School by the Head of French, Mr Urquhart, who gave a running commentary in immaculate French. Later they had discussion with Mr Douglas Morgan the Head Teacher on topics such as school exchanges, and more.
In the afternoon the Delegation were guests of honour at HCC’s Civic Reception in the striking Helensburgh & Lomond Civic Centre. They learned a lot about Helensburgh and we learned a lot about Le Taillan. But, the highlight of the Reception was the entrancing display of Highland Dancing from the Margaret Rose School of Dance. The young dancers literally took everyone’s breath away.

TUESDAY : the Delegation visited Lomond School where the Head of international links Mr Neil Mackay hosted the visit. He showed them round the School, the Boarding house and the Sports facilities. The visitors were impressed by all they saw, especially by the strikingly modern Sports Pavilion. .

WEDNESDAY. A tasting tour of the Clydeside Distillery : for some the highlight of the trip. This was followed by visits to the Transport and Kelvingrove Museums ending at Glasgow’s (in)famous Necropolis.

THURSDAY : a “Wash-Up” session with our French friends at Helensburgh’s impressive new Leisure Centre. In their feedback the Delegation rated every engagement as excellent. For them, their visit was an outstanding success with the hospitality and warmth they received throughout, second to none. Agreement reached on Next Steps centred on an invitation for a reciprocal visit by a Delegation from Helensburgh to Le Taillan to explore school exchanges, tourism opportunities and learning from the Bordeaux region on tackling Climate Change, Entrepreneurship, and more. To build on our new relationship planning would begin on a Helensburgh Arts, Music and Dance Festival in Le Taillan- Medoc sometime in 2024.

The day, and the delegation visit, ended with a Farewell Reception at Helensburgh’s own Parisian inspired wine bar – La Jupe. Hosted by Provost Maurice Corry there were toasts to the Auld Alliance with an exchange of gifts, entertainment, and canapes.

Tariq S Durrani
Nigel Millar
Helensburgh Community Councillors
April 2023

Ties with Le Taillan, Bordeaux,. France.

In January 2020, COSLA on behalf of the Scottish Government sent out a ‘Town Twinning Request Scotland’ listing a number of towns and cities in France and Germany.

The document was discussed at the 27 February 2020 HCC Meeting, and following a study of the listing of towns and cities, it was agreed that Le Taillan-Medoc , with a population of 10,000 offered a good match with Helensburgh. Other places represented much larger towns and cities, such as Potsdam, or small villages with a population of 5000 or less.

A key consideration was to discuss the prospects of twining with the Helensburgh Twinning Association that has promoted ties with Thoars in France for some 40 years. The President of Helensburgh District Twinning Association (Margaret McInnes) wrote a supporting letter on 2 May 2019, indicating their interest in promoting school ties, and even offering to take a delegation of the Margaret School of Dancing to Le Taillan, though indicating their focus at the time was to host a delegation from Thoars. It is worth noting that Helensburgh is not an exclusive twin town of Thoars.

Matters were in abeyance due COVID, nevertheless there were ZOOM exchanges between HCC officials and those from the Mayor of Le Taillan’s office, to learn more about the two towns and to explore the prospect offered by twinning. There were slide presentations in French and English at these ZOOM calls.

In the New Year 2021 the Mayor of Le Taillan wrote to HCC Convenor with an invitation to formalise the links.
Matters were then overtaken by rampant effects of COVID, though e-mail exchanges took place including exchange of greetings, till the recent visit by the le Taillan delegation in April 2023.

Tariq Durrani
31 January 2023.

In 2017, Helensburgh Community Council created a sub-committee, Vision for Helensburgh, to understand what the people of Helensburgh wanted their town to be like in the future. Since then, we’ve all experienced a significant shift in behaviours brought on by the pandemic.

The Vision for Helensburgh work is intended to be part of our response to any planning process with Argyll and Bute Council as part of any planning application for the waterfront development. However, given that the pandemic changed a lot of behaviours, we wanted to get an insight into what the community wanted to ensure that any response was as robust as possible.

Through a website, we invited people to answer one question:

What would you like to see built in the empty Helensburgh waterfront space?

There were four options:

• Large retail development (M&S, Aldi, etc)
• Local retail development
• Community facilities
• Additional leisure development

People could then suggest other uses for the space or leave a comment.

We had 1,025 responses to the question. Here are the results:

Looking more into the comments that people left, two themes arose.

1. Any development on the waterfront site should focus firmly on the young people of Helensburgh and how we can make the town a better place for them.
   
2. While a large retail site on the waterfront isn’t desirable, people are looking for a cheaper retail option that could be placed elsewhere in the town.

The HCC raised a number of faults within the town centre with Argyll & Bute Council recently which detract from the ambience of the town. The matter is now under urgent discussion with the officials.