£80m museum bid to celebrate past, present and future of Clyde shipbuilding

A consultation has been launched on the ambitious £70m to £80m project which organisers say should equal attractions like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Titanic in Belfast and the V&A in Dundee.

The Ship Yard Trust which is pushing the project said that it will "both put the Clyde even more on the tourist map and provide much needed employment in the local communities".

The V&A in Dundee

The plan is not just to celebrate the great industrial achievements in engineering and shipbuilding on the Clyde, but to provide a home for innovative marine engineering projects which could further develop the river's heritage.

Shipbuilding on the Clyde once extended from Glasgow right down to Greenock on both sides of the river.

At its height the Clyde employed tens of thousands of workers and was constructing around a fifth of all ships launched in the early 1900s.

An estimated 25,000 naval, merchant and passenger ships were built since the Scott family set up in Greenock in 1711.

Its credits include the Cutty Sark clipper and battleships HMS Colossus and Repulse.

The RMS Queen Elizabeth and QE2 were both constructed for luxury liner firm Cunard at John Brown in Clydebank, a town which did not exist in 1861 but by 1901 was home to more than 30,000 people.

The trust say: "The time has come to acknowledge the vision of those who established these industries, of the innovation central to their success and to the individual contribution made by hundreds of thousands of men and women over many decades who toiled through good times and bad to manufacture remarkable products and make the name Clyde built synonymous with excellence."

The trust said its aim is to focus attention on the achievements and "engage with all parties to formulate a strategy that permanently acknowledges this outstanding industrial heritage".

Gil Paterson, the chairman of the trust said: “The Clyde’s past is a fantastic, untapped asset and coupled with what Clydeside is engaged in now and into the future, the trust wants to bring together and showcase this to the world, we can then celebrate our past and help pioneer our future”.

He said several sites on the Clyde had been looked at but said that a public consultation which they are now starting will inform their final decisions.

"We think as we are pulling out of Covid people are looking for positive things," said Mr Paterson, the former MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie who built Gil's Motor Factors.

"We are determined to really look at all sites right from top to bottom. The one thing we will insist on, otherwise it is not worth a candle, is that it will be on the banks of the river.

"But we need opinions from up and down the river.

"But it is not just about the past but part of our mission is about the future.

"At the same time we want to highlight some of the innovative work that is taking place in development that is hidden under a bushel.

"We think all the Clyde should be connected in this venture. Everyone should have a stake in it.

"We need to convince ourselves that what we are setting up to do that the public will support it, that's the first thing. Once we know we have something that is supported then that's when we start.

"We will then go into overdrive for funding.

"But if we don't get public support, we are finished."

Ian Johnston, trust board member and shipbuilding historian, added: “The British shipbuilding and marine engineering industry had its origins on Clydeside where it took hold through invention, enterprise and skill. If much smaller today, shipbuilding still has a significant presence on the Clyde. The great history of this river from its earliest years to the present day deserves to be told with confidence and pride.”

Ian Mackay, trust board member and chartered surveyor, said: “When I visited the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao a few years ago it became apparent to me that the building had changed the fortunes of that deindustrialised post- shipbuilding town to the extent it was now the place to visit with tourism and local jobs thriving. Then I thought on the Clyde we have a much bigger shipbuilding and engineering story to tell but we’ve nowhere to tell it so why don’t we build our own as part of the reinvigoration of Clydeside.”