PLANS for Helensburgh’s new swimming pool and leisure centre should be approved, according to council planning chiefs – despite more than a hundred objections to the proposals.

A total of 115 objections have been sent to Argyll and Bute Council over the waterfront plans, along with 61 expressions of support.

But in spite of the significant opposition, officials from the authority’s planning department have recommended that the application, from the council’s development and infrastructure department, should be given the green light.

However, they also say that a public hearing of the authority’s planning, protective services and licensing committee (PPSL) should be held to consider the application in detail before a final decision is made.

The application will go before members of the PPSL committee on Wednesday, October 24 at a meeting to be held not in Helensburgh, but at the council’s HQ in Lochgilphead.

A report on the application by planning officer David Moore says that the planning application meets with the council’s development policies.

Mr Moore says in his report: "Officers are of the opinion that the scheme represents an attractive and appropriate solution for the site and its environs, and subject to the holding of a discretionary hearing in advance of determination, it is recommended that planning permission be granted subject to the imposition of appropriate conditions.

“The proposed development is in accordance with LDP [local development plan] policies and also accords with the parameters set out in the most recently approved 2012 Masterplan addendum for the development site."

* More on this story on this site in the next few days – and in the next print edition of the Advertiser, on sale on Thursday, October 25.