August 5 2024

Wheatley Homes have won their bid to demolish four tower blocks on Glasgow's Wyndford estate, wasting no time in beginning internal strip out ahead of their controlled demolition.

The Court of Session has ruled that a judicial challenge lodged by campaigners against Glasgow City Council over the absence of an environmental impact assessment cannot go ahead, removing the last legal impediment to demolition.

Campaigners, saddened by the loss of high-rise heritage include Alan Dunlop, who told Urban Realm: "I feel for the Wyndford Residents Union, who proved themselves to be a formidable group, with many talented and resourceful individuals, who fought magnificently on behalf of the true residents of Wyndford against a housing association that ignored the majority of people on the estate and misrepresented the facts.

"Wyndford residents and we Glaswegians are now faced with the realisation that a unique piece of social housing, urban planning and community resource, fifty years in the making, will be destroyed and replaced with a mundane, ubiquitous and anonymous blocks, consisting of many houses for sale, that takes no account of this special location, riverfront and history and could be mistaken for Milton Keynes of any city in Britain.

"Shame on the housing association, shame on Glasgow City Council and shame on those who did not speak up." Preparatory works already underway include the removal of asbestos and soft fittings, clearing the way for around 300 new homes designed by Anderson Bell + Christie. 

15 Comments

#1 Posted by town planner on 5 Aug 2024 at 14:48 PM

Agree 100% with Alan Dunlop on this, real shame.

GCC should be be encouraging taller buildings/density not demolishing what is already there.

#2 Posted by Ben on 5 Aug 2024 at 14:59 PM

The usual whinging from Alan Dunlop....I wonder if he lives in a post war concrete high rise?

Perhaps his efforts would be better spent trying to achieve action into bringing Glasgow's listed buildings on the buildings at risk register back into use, rather than trying to save these towers (while also calling for the demolition of The Glasgow School of Art).

#3 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 5 Aug 2024 at 15:32 PM

Glesga subsidised housing economics / interweb scuttlebutt edition -- Halve the number of units but charge three times the rent.

Big loss to the city -- surely the housing association could have swapped the assets for another site and allowed the existing buildings to be refurbished and managed by a more dynamic organisation?

Housing emergency -- in press release form only.

File under couldn't be ersed by the effort needed to manage these publicly assets properly.

Opportunity cost is huge -- plenty of ghost streets locally that could have been re-populated with new housing.

Not good.

#4 Posted by Tammy Scoosh on 5 Aug 2024 at 15:45 PM

Tragic to hear. How can an Environmental Impact Assessment NOT be required for demolishing 600 homes? Replacing with less during a housing shortfall.

Fraser/Livingstone did a full set of feasible proposals for improving the flats, making them not only more liveable, but increasing the living size from 1 bed to 2 bed units with minimal structural impact. Why did this get flung in the bin?

Scotland, Glasgow, and many of the housing associations need to get a grip.

#5 Posted by Ross on 5 Aug 2024 at 16:27 PM

Thank goodness. I am all in favour of bringing down these tower blocks that blight the Glasgow skyline. They will not be missed by the overwhelming amount of Glaswegians who are glad to see the back of them. Retrofitting is just throwing away good money after bad - their lifespan is over. Good riddance.

#6 Posted by AlanDunlopDontLiveInNoTowerBlock on 5 Aug 2024 at 16:50 PM

A lot of the flats being demolished are 1 beds and a large amount of the replacements are family sized 3 and 4-bed homes. The total number of rooms, and the total potential population, is increasing, even if the total number of individual flats is less.

#7 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 5 Aug 2024 at 18:41 PM

Opportunity cost is the issue here.
We could have kept the flats and built new elsewhere.

The new flats that are planned for the site could be built anywhere in north Glasgow to meet the need for more family sized subsidised accommodation.

Probably cheaper to re-populate the many ghost streets in the area than totally transforming the Wyndford site. By all accounts the flats are now empty which would have provided the blocks as a blank canvas to be re-let / refurbished / re-purposed with new owners and better management.

We definitely have plenty of sites in the city and we seen to have a housing crisis on our hands so to treat these units as temporary structures to be bulldozed when the mood takes us would appear to be wasteful in the extreme.

How long are the new units supposed to last?
Has all the hallmarks of a low energy housing association wanting bigger rents and an easy life.
Plus a few ribbons to cut.

#8 Posted by Jeff on 6 Aug 2024 at 08:33 AM

You can achieve equivalent density without having to build tower blocks. Let’s not be naive here.

The fact that these tower blocks lay predominantly empty suggests, that even if they could be adjusted to new modern living requirements and regulations, they are simply not the way people in general these days want to live in Glasgow. Thats just a fact. If this was London, I’d have a different opinion on this.

#9 Posted by James Hepburn on 6 Aug 2024 at 14:11 PM

I wonder what Glasgow City Council's 'motivation' for doing this is?

#10 Posted by Gideon on 6 Aug 2024 at 14:42 PM

@#6 - Surely the need right now is for many more 1 bed units for single people, couples and the elderly.

#11 Posted by jonny boy on 6 Aug 2024 at 14:54 PM

Common sense prevails. How much tax payers money was wasted on legal costs fighting this for a second time?

The blocks were not popular well before works were planned and were predominantly studios and 1 bed units which just don't accommodate modern family living so its all very well saying repurpose or refurbish but who actually wants to live there?

There is a housing emergency crisis but thats only going to get worse by the cuts the Scottish Govt are applying to affordable housing budgets.

#12 Posted by KB on 6 Aug 2024 at 19:36 PM

If they were maintained, i.e. the lifts worked, the concierge was on call, it was well lit, amenities abound - there would be nothing wrong with them. Instead, it's a drug infested, urine stinking hovel, and a dangerous place to be.

#13 Posted by Jimbob Tanktop on 7 Aug 2024 at 15:35 PM

#10 UR, do you need to let this garbage go unmoderated?

#14 Posted by UR on 7 Aug 2024 at 15:52 PM

Yes, can we please keep to the subject matter in hand.

#15 Posted by Lovely on 8 Aug 2024 at 20:39 PM

It seems this was a commercially motivated decision to corruptly monetise and destroy a publicly owned site and build half as many low quality two storey rabbit hutches. I mean if it was 600+ units of proper tenement style streets at least some of their arguments would stand up. The 'green' arguments that were used are the opposite of the truth. We could have kept some or all of the blocks and done some interesting infills around for the larger units that we are told are needed as there is plenty of spare land there. Now it will be a waste of a good site in an area that has come up a lot recently, which is probably exactly why it was targeted for this destructive and reductive scheme.

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