When funding plans for Inverclyde’s state-of-the-art Ocean Terminal, tipped to handle hundreds of thousands of cruise passengers and economically and culturally transform the region into the UK’s key cruise hub got finalised in 2015, residents could have been forgiven for saying they had heard it all before.

This region, spread-eagled along the mouth of the River Clyde, has had fortunes as up and down as an estuary tide over the years. But there is a palpable feeling around communities here that 2019 really is the start of a major upturn.

The aim, worthy of Inverclyde’s bombastic Victorian heyday, is ambitious: a maritime hub to rival Southampton or Tenerife that attracts one million visitors...