Clydebank’s most historic buildings are to be overhauled with nearly £2million investment.
Historic displays of Singer sewing machines, models showing off the town’s shipbuilding past and the Blitz room of remembrance will be moved from Clydebank Town Hall into a new museum in the basement of Clydebank Library.
And the civic space will close its permanent cafe, reopen the bar at the back of the grand gallery, and restore a building canopy not seen in decades.
The three councillors of West Dunbartonshire Council’s cultural committee approved two projects on Monday.
One will see more than £500,000 go to turning the basement of the library into a museum space, including one of the HMS Vanguard model from the town hall. The other two models will go into storage. There will be a focus on Singers and the Clydebank Blitz ahead of the 80th anniversary in 2021.
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A total of £1.4m will be spent on the town hall. Proposals earlier this year were halted while a working group revisited the plans. Council bosses are trying to make the venue primarily for weddings and events in a bid for it to break even each year. Some days, the cafe makes as little as £11, said a report.
Council officers wanted to move the main public entrance to Dumbarton Road instead of Hall Street, but councillors rejected that.
Committee chairman Bailie Denis Agnew said: “It’s my view the entrance to this town hall has never been from Dumbarton Road.
“They previously tried to install a desk at the entrance [there] - it lasted a week.
“The town hall is important to Clydebank and West Dunbartonshire. We have to get this right.”
In a third item, the committee agreed to spend £15,000 to get options for improving the Backdoor Gallery in Dalmuir. Councillors also said it should be renamed Dalmuir Gallery.
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