GORBALS NO MORE - Yet Another Bit of Old Glasgow Lost

What is wrong with Glasgow?

Here's a question for you: why doesn't Glasgow City Council work more closely with housing developers to repurpose the city's old unused buildings for housing?

On far too many occasions the city's inhabitants are being fed that tired churned-out excuse about buildings beng privately-owned so there's nothing the council can do. Compulsory purchase would appear to be an unrealistic or perhaps just unused option.

Meanwhile, the city is falling down around us. Only in the past week Glasgow has been described as looking like it's been bombed. And it's not solely down to the upheaval of any number of pedestrian/cycling works.

Here in Glasgow we have a huge number of fine old buildings that are now abandoned; a huge number of fine old buildings that are not being routinely maintained; a huge number of fine old buildings that we all pass every day until one day we walk by and that building has gone.

This video is about one such building: India Buildings in Bridge Street, on the edge of The Gorbals, a building that is being demolished as I type.

India Buildings is a fine old Glasgow building. Once a factory, it has lain empty for many years. It has also lain untouched and unmaintained. Here in Glasgow we only seem to care for old abandoned buildings when bits of them fall off and land on the heads of the populace.

You only had to look at the frontage of India Buildings to see that plants were growing on its vacant facade. But not just plants; India Buildings had trees growing on it! The roots of large plants will quite happily find their way between stonework, and will in the end manage to actually move and displace stone.

In the last week India Buildings saw a partial roof collapse. With the loss of essential roof trusses to keep the walls and the whole structure together, some wall movement was detected which resulted in adjacent buildings beng immediately evacuated and many residents made homeless. Demolition was now the only answer. Oh what a surprise!

It's almost as if we've all turned our backs on these architecturally grand structures in the knowledge that to turn and look would be to witness the last dying throes of Glasgow heritage.

Surely working with planners and developers in the renovation of these structures for housing makes perfect sense? Or is Glasgow addicted to the demolition of its past?

What is wrong with Glasgow?