FORMER first minister Alex Salmond praised the Telegraph's campaigning over the decimation of services at Inverclyde Royal as he visited Greenock to bolster his Alba party's council election campaign.

Mr Salmond — who also hit out at the 'failed private experiment' at Inchgreen Dry Dock — told how our coverage of the 'deliberate' decline at the hospital has resonated beyond the boundaries of the district.

As he prepared to host an event to continue his party's drive for independence as an 'immediate priority', the man who led Scotland for more than seven years demanded that promises made to IRH must be honoured.

Mr Salmond said: "The hospital needs to be invested in and not rundown and facilities taken away, that's what was promised would happen and that is what should happen.

"I've seen too many occasions where health boards subject facilities to the death of a thousand cuts.

"They take this facility away and that facility away and then they say, strangely enough, 'You don't seem to have the doctors, the consultants, the specialisms here, so we have to go elsewhere'.

"It is a deliberate policy of attrition."

Mr Salmond added: "If I may say so, the Telegraph's campaign on the hospital is one which has been noted nationwide.

"It's been a strong, vigorous campaign and is exactly what newspapers should be doing and it deserves, as the community deserves, to be met with success — and Alba is right behind it."

Mr Salmond was at a packed function suite at Cappielow to lend his support to Alba's four candidates standing for election in Inverclyde — Louise Williams, Philomena Donnachie, Jim McEleny and Chris McEleny.

Asked about Inchgreen Dry Dock in the wake of multiple failures by a ship scrapping outfit to win a single order after leasing the facility from owner Peel Ports six months ago, he shook his head.

Mr Salmond said: "The way that Scotland's resources, both natural and physical, like the dry dock at Inchgreen, are being squandered is a national scandal.

"An asset like that has been given away on the prospect of development which was never solid, as opposed to having it part and parcel of a real industry, a shipbuilding and ship repair industry, which is what it should be.

"Dry docks are valuable resources and we should not be allowing companies which have no intention really of developing things industrially to get ownership of them."

Mr Salmond added: "I still have great hopes that we can get some sensible management into the marine resources of Scotland, because what's coming in terms of offshore wind resource will be one of the most valuable resources in Europe.

"With cheap, green affordable energy and all of the infrastructure that's going to be required to service that, then dry dock facilities are of great value.

"So it [Inchgreen Dry Dock] should be taken out of the failed private experiment, it should be brought back to be ready to be part of the re-industrialisation of Scotland."

Mr Salmond said: "Our electricity has gone up 54 per cent, the price of wind hasn't increased.

"People are cottoning on to the fact that our resources are being squandered, the profits from them have been taken elsewhere, Westminster gets the revenues and we're sitting paying the bills.

"To tackle that we need independence as an immediate priority, to gain control of our resources, the resources that are there and the resources that are to come.

"An energy rich country shouldn't have mass fuel poverty and that's where we are at the present moment."

Asked about the state of affairs at Ferguson's shipyard, the former first minister said: "The one benefit that came from saving the yard is that it's still there, and with potential for the future.

"The yard has been invested in, therefore it's capable of building ships.

"We know the ships are required because the CalMac fleet is stuttering and spluttering all over the western waters at present."

Echoing world-leading shipbuilder Dr Stuart Ballantyne, who last month called for Ferguson and Inchgreen to be combined, Mr Salmond said: "We need to get a management and an ownership in that wants to build ships, the workforce is there, so let's get it done."

"Orders are needed for ferries, so we should get a design which is consistent, reliable and which can be replicated ship after ship, get them built at Ferguson's and look to the future."