Plans for the council to buy-back land in order to see 21 new socially rented houses built have been given the go-ahead.
The site of the former Frank Downie House on Ottawa Crescent had been sold by the council back in 2021.
However, five years on, council bosses presented a proposal to buy the land back for a sum of £379,000 and have the new homes built.
(Image: Colin Mearns)
At a full council meeting last week, councillors were given a chance to scrutinise the plan presented by officer.
Councillor Michelle McGinty put forward a query as to the proposed acquisition of CCG Scotland as the contractor despite them being the company who currently own and are selling the land.
She said: "Obviously, CCG are the owners of the land and the council quite rightly are looking to get as many new houses as possible.
"My question is over the procurement part and how transparent it is and how it looks to the public.
"I suppose the one concern that I have is the fact that I know that we have a number of companies that we are in a framework with that we can use to build properties but given the fact that they are the owners of this land, did we consider going out to the open market and ask people to bid for this?
"Or did we just feel that because they were the owners, it was reasonable to go ahead with them being the builders? "
(Image: Colin Mearns)
Peter Barry, Chief Officer for Housing answered McGinty's concerns by reassuring her they were taking steps to ensure the right process is being carried out.
He said: "It's actually a great question and it's an important question. It's not about their ownership that's the determining factor whether they do the work or not.
"It's about their quality as a builder, and they currently sit top of the framework we use and have been there consistently for some time.
"That doesn't mean they do all the work for us. A number of different builders do work within West Dunbartonshire, Willox Park is a good example of a different builder that was used.
"So it's their quality, price, efficiency, all that, they're the determinant factors which will result in the award but the procurement contract is still to be done, so we're going to go through that process now."
(Image: CCG Scotland Ltd)
We previously reported how the site of the former Frank Downie Care and Day Care Centre has laid unused since the local authority decided to close the service and sell the land back in 2020.
Their plan was to build a new care home in the flagship Queens Quay development which would merge together four smaller centres within the Clydebank area.
Once this was completed, the former Frank Downie House was sold to Torah Capital in late 2021 who had plans to demolish the centre and use the land for residential housing after their £137,136 purchase.
However, this work was never undertaken.
The land has since been sold privately twice to the Glasgow West Development Company and then CCG Scotland Ltd.
Meanwhile in August 2022, a devastating blaze ravaged the home with much of it destroyed and left in piles of rubble.
Since then, the site has seen little to no activity and remained unused up until the end of last year when CCG Scotland Ltd submitted plans to create four new blocks of flats and homes.
Now, they will be built by CCG Scotland Ltd and passed over to the council following the land sale.
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