A HELENSBURGH woman has spoken of her lucky escape after narrowly avoiding being hit by falling masonry from a town centre building.

A large chunk of brickwork smashed on to the pavement in Sinclair Street on Monday afternoon - just missing Alison Davis and her friend, who had gone for lunch together.

The pair were returning to Alison’s car when the rubble came loose from a flat directly across from the Co-op supermarket and struck the ground.

Having been a matter of inches away from a potentially catastrophic day out, Alison told the Advertiser: “We reported it to the police straight away as we would have been killed or severely disabled if it had hit us.

“My friend had turned into the archway that takes you to the car park when I stopped and said ‘it’s this way’, and just as I said that and stopped the masonry fell right in front of us.

“If I hadn’t have stopped it would’ve hit us. It would’ve been a really close call.

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“It looked like it came from the side of a window where there was a gap.

“It was sheer luck that we missed it.

“We were walking side by side and it was a moment where if Yvonne hadn’t gone one way and I hadn’t stopped to shout her we don’t know what would’ve happened.

“It was a big chunk of masonry that smashed into three or four pieces.”

Last October, a stretch of East Clyde Street between its junctions with Sinclair and Maitland Streets was closed for nearly six weeks after sections of a dangerous building fell on to the road and public walkway in high winds.

And Alison said this week’s incident should act as a further warning to the authorities.

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She said: “[This is] yet another reminder of the importance of maintaining these old buildings in the town - just so dangerous to the public.

“We had umbrellas up because the weather was really horrible but they wouldn’t have stopped that.

“It fell in the middle of the pavement. It was definitely a near miss, we would’ve been right under it.

“It’s a difficult one because there’s no way you could’ve mitigated that or the owners could’ve foreseen it.

“It was absolute luck that it missed us, nothing else.”

Local police attended the scene at around 1.15pm on Monday afternoon along with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, who confirmed that nothing else appeared to be loose on the affected building.

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No injuries were reported and a barrier was placed around the area of the pavement as a precaution, with the incident being reported to Argyll and Bute Council.

A council spokesperson said on Tuesday: “Our building standards team is currently investigating the condition of the building to determine any further actions.

“Our priority is to remove any immediate danger to the public.”

Argyll and Bute Council was awarded £1.24 million in March to establish a ‘conservation area regeneration scheme’ in Helensburgh for the repair of four key buildings in the centre of the town.

However, the buildings which will be the focus of the work are not expected to be publicly identified until negotiations with owners are complete.