Council flats on the Vennel, Greenock, by Frank C. Mears

Frank Mears was appointed planning consultant to the Corporation of Greenock in 1940.  It was the only consultancy in which he directly confronted the problems of the industrial west of Scotland.  The plan he prepared, entitled Greenock: Portal of the Clyde, was published in 1947.  It outlined a programme for the long-term development of the part of Renfrewshire lying to the north of a line between Kilmacolm and Wemyss Bay.  Besides Greenock, it encompassed the burghs of Port Glasgow and Gourock and the villages of  Inverkip and Wemyss Bay.

During the Depression, the slump in shipbuilding had resulted in high levels of unemployment in Greenock and Port Glasgow.  As in Scotland’s mining areas, reliance on a single heavy industry had resulted in a particular vulnerability to recession.  Mears argued that future security depended on diversification of the area’s industrial base, with particular emphasis on the creation of employment for women.

On the basis of an analysis which traced Greenock’s history to its 18th century origins, Mears concluded that the town should should seek to build on its long-standing local industries based on tobacco, sugar, distilling and marine engineering, and that priority should be given to industries geared to export.

Clyde Valley Regional Plan, 1949

Patrick Abercrombie’s Clyde Valley planning team had identified a serious deficiency of open spaces in the lower part of the town.  In Greenock: Portal of the Clyde (1947) Mears proposed redevelopment at lower densities, the creation of new industrial areas, and accommodation of the displaced population in a constellation of new neighbourhoods laid out in the Kip Valley on American Parkway lines to create a “federal Garden City”.