Skateboarders in Helensburgh have found a new location to hone their nimble footwork and gravity-defying tricks.

The youngsters appear to have started using the landscaped garden at the new Civic Centre.

But a campaigning gran who led a fundraising drive to improve the skatepark at the pierhead believes the council will take action to prevent skateboarders using the garden.

Patricia Lawson said: "My concern is that the council will spend another fortune on fencing and locking their garden, when the answer is to give the young people a good skate park of their own on the waterfront."

Patricia was secretary of the Helensburgh Skatepark Redevelopment group (HSPR) in 2015 when £18,000 was raised throughout the community to revamp the pierhead skatepark.

After that work was completed, the group asked the council to give over an adjoining piece of land for an upgraded concrete skatepark instead of a wooden one, but the request was refused.

Now Patricia says it is "poetic justice" that the skateboarders have started using the council garden, as no provision for a skatepark is included in the plans for the redeveloped pierhead site.

She added: "While discussions regarding the plans for the new waterfront are still ongoing, perhaps it is worth mentioning the fact that nothing is being said about a new skatepark for the young people.

"I was involved with a group of caring people who raised the funds and revamped the existing skate park back in 2015. What we did was a temporary measure done as quickly as possible to stop the young folks from skating in the new town square.

"However, we wanted to continue as a group to raise the funds to make an all ages permanent skate park in concrete and unfortunately the council at the time would not earmark that piece of land for us.

"It may therefore seem like a little bit of poetic justice to see about a dozen young people using the garden at the posh, new council offices, with their bikes, skate boards and scooters.

"We saw them leaving and the evidence of their enjoyment of the garden is obvious from these photographs."

Patricia said the waterfront was an ideal location for a skatepark as it was prominently in public view which discouraged any anti-social behaviour.

Councillor Ellen Morton told the Adveriser she had not been made aware of any issues at the Civic Centre.

She added: "As for the request to have a permanent skateboard facility on the pierhead site a few years ago, I did advise Patricia at the time that the council plan was to develop that site in a holistic fashion, building on the work previously done on eg the Helensburgh Masterplan, so there would be no agreement to allocate bits of the site in advance in a piecemeal fashion to any project, in case it limited future development.

"I asked for the skateboarders to discuss alternative options, and when I next got back in touch, I was advised that the group had disbanded and given the surplus funding they had left over from the provision of the temporary facility, to the Helensburgh Seafront Group organised by Ian McQuire, and the skateboard Park would be delivered by that route.

"I have heard nothing about this since.

Councillor Morton added: "Obviously we are now out to public consultation on the plans for the Waterfront Development, so there is an opportunity for anyone to get involved in that now."