A DUMBARTON charity is set to transform an old train station toilet into a mini-heritage centre to display its memorabilia later this year.

The Armed Forces Veterans' Association, which is currently based at Dumbarton Central Station, submitted plans to create a small museum in one of the vacant rooms at the station last year and had it approved in December.

The reason behind the transformation is to give members of the community the chance to see all of the items they have accumulated over the years and to make more space in their current office, where the memorabilia is currently stored, for their charity shop which provides vital funds.

Chairman of the association, Robert McCreadie, previously told The Reporter: "The basic idea is to use what is currently a derelict room and turn it into a heritage centre.

"The idea of it is to be educational for school kids and the local community and we want to have mainly a military aspect but we also want to bring in the local side of it, i.e. the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, this was one of their main recruiting areas. We also have the base at Faslane.

"Also we want to get something for the RAF even though there's currently nothing in this area."

At the moment the association is applying for grants from the Railway Heritage Trust, Scotrail and Scottish Memorabilia in order to raise the necessary funds to conduct the renovation.

The plans are set to be put into motion in early March, as Mr MCreadie said: "We're just chasing funding right now and then once we have confirmations of what we're going to get we can have a definite start date.

"At the moment we're hoping to get everything operational by the end of June but you can never tell when these sorts of things will be confirmed.

"The total amount we're hoping to get, with a 10% contingency, is £15,00 so we can do everything that we need to, and I'm confident we can get the necessary funds.

"Things are progressing nicely and it'll be good to see this plan come to fruition when we're done."

The Armed Forces Veterans' Association Dumbarton office opened in 2014 and was also a vacant room at the station until it was renovated and furnished. They provide counselling and advice services to help Armed Forces Veterans, both older and younger, with a variety of issues including post-traumatic stress disorder, homeless issues, welfare issues and addiction issues.

Mr McCreadie concluded: "It seemed a natural thing to do, to take a room on the station that's derelict and, there's quite a few in this station that are derelict, so we're trying to do something to rebuild the rooms a little."