Helensburgh

With a location close to Loch Lomond and set against a beach on the Clyde Firth overlooking Argyll, you’d think that Helensburgh may be a particularly nice place to visit.

Certainly there are a lot of lovely Georgian and Victorian houses set about the streets as they follow the main road down towards the beach front, and you could be excused for thinking Helensburgh to be a very affluent and desirable area to live.

Then you get to the actual beach, and all positive thoughts are dashed.

Simply put, the beach at Helensburgh is one of the most disgusting we’ve visited in Scotland.

Once you get past the lovely houses you end up on a cold and soulless beachfront, looking down upon wide grey sands littered with waste and refuse from Glasgow.

If they wanted to spoil the beach on purpose, they couldn’t have done a better job. Maybe kids could find enjoyment playing among the washed up rubble and industrial refuse, but we didn’t even give them that chance. A short walk along the pier meant we’d seen enough and we turned back and drove away.

Helensburgh could be a very attractive seaside resort, and perhaps it was once – but at the present it’s nothing better than a dumping ground for 20th century waste looked down upon by some of the prettiest housing developments in Scotland.