Viator’s Talk of the towns 1940s housing crisis in Greenock

I HAVE previously mentioned a suggestion to solve a critical need for new houses in Greenock and Port Glasgow identified after the Second World War.

It was contained within the Clyde Valley Regional Plan 1946, published in 1949.

The report described housing conditions in Greenock and Port Glasgow as ‘extremely bad’.

It stated that Greenock, pictured in 1947, had around 19,000 houses but within the next 50 years the town would need approximately 13,000 new properties to replace unfit homes and provide accommodation for families who did not have separate dwelling places - several generations living under the same roof.

There was a shortage of available land and my original article advised that the report recommended an overspill town of around 8,000 houses be created to the west of Bishopton.

The Clyde Valley Regional Plan considered three other areas for overspill accommodation.

It rejected the Kip Valley because it could not accommodate more than 4,5005,000 houses.

A site of 1,500 acres to the west of Kilmacolm was deemed suitable for up to 10,000 houses.

Road access to Greenock was a problem but the principal reason for rejecting the site was the high cost of installing essential services. Drainage would require to be carried by a trunk sewer to be discharged into the Clyde via the Black Cart.

Langbank was looked at but there was insufficient land.

The Bishopton proposal did not go ahead but in 2013 work started on the Dargavel housing development on the former site of the village’s ROF factory.

Quite a number of this area’s residents were employed at the factory over the years and would have been able to walk to work had they found homes in the proposed overspill town.