West Bay Promenade and beach - Celebrate the heritage of the promenade. Maintain the biodiversity of the shore to improve flood resilience. Work towards bathing quality beach classification to improve the community and visitor experience of the shore.

West Bay is 1000 meters of walkable promenade along a natural shingle beach looking south onto the Firth of Clyde. West Bay hosts hotels, houses, cafes, a miniature golf course, the University of Highlands and Island’s Dunoon campus, a pavilion building with public toilets, green spaces and a very well used play park.  It is also located within Dunoon's Conservation area.

West Bay has a fascinating social and cultural heritage and is teeming with wildlife and biodiversity.  The bay has a long history as a bathing beach and a place you can hire boats from in the holiday season.  However, years of dwindling visitor numbers and under-investment into the built environment along West Bay, combined with a lack of safety and information signage, reduces West Bay as both a community resource and quality 'blue space'.

In addition, the beach is cleared every year of biodiversity with a digger, usually in August. This practice, which is intended to take the level of the shingle down, removes a valuable natural asset and reduces the stability of the shingle. Best practice in sustainable beach management is to leave the shingle and plant material as a way of naturally of stabilising the beach, reducing flood risk and maintaining a healthy ecosystem for people and wildlife. 

Local Place Plan

• Develop a coherent design strategy for West Bay that improves the community and visitor experience of the shore, prioritising features that make the beach, play park and promenade accessible for all.

• Maintain the shingle beach in alignment with best practice for flood resilience, biodiversity and visitor experience.

• Install information signage about the natural and cultural heritage of West Bay, alongside safety information for swimmers, including tide times. 

• Install more bins, provide recycling opportunities. 

• Consider how the beach could be used to host small scale, low environmental impact commercial activities linked to sports and leisure, building on the historic use of the shore for boat and deckchair hire. 

Community Action Plan 

• Argyll and Bute Council to work with community partners to get West Bay classified as a bathing beach by SEPA. This would ensure that water quality is monitored. This is likely to increase opportunities for investment and promotion. 

• Argyll and Bute Council to work with community stakeholders to identify funding to support the co-creation of a Green and Blue space strategy and maintenance plan.  

• Argyll and Bute Council to work with community stakeholders to identify funding and utilise existing maintenance resources more effectively to support spaces for wellbeing and biodiversity.