Reposted from a comment made on this blog:-

I attended the demolition of 2-4 [Eagle Heights] & 16-18 [Barony Heights] Fountainwell Place, in the wee small hours of the morning on Sunday 13th July 2008. Huntingdon Square had camera crews with hard hats standing by to record the event, together with a large trailer to feed them. The local indiginous youth hung about the old Templeton’s corner looking down into the Place.
2-4 [St.Rollox Heights] Fountainwell Terrace was lit up at the rear revealing the demolition crews cabins. I beleive they will stay here whilst they butcher 6-8 Fountainwell Square (anyone know its heights name? was it Huntingdon Heights?)
The Terrace and 37-49 [Tennant Heights] Fountainwell Avenue will be the last of the group of 5 to be demolished.
Up till now I thought that Pinkston had been saved but a conversation with one of the demolition guys assured me that this was not the case and that the whole lot will be down within 2 years.
As someone who moved out of Sighthill 22 years ago I suppose i am a bit of a hypocrite for moaning about this demolition but I honestly thought they’d be there forever.
Ever memory I have of these flats is precious and these “people” at the GHA are destroying the monuments of our youth.
I was the boy who got out his bed at 5 to 9 and still made it to school on time courtesy of the desicion to put Sighthill Primary on my front door. GHA should have been made to invest in Sighthill and not have been allowed this option. I hate to see all the shity looking, worthless pieces of crap that GHA are now cladding being allowed to stand while Sighthill is being subjected to this wanton act of terrorism. GHA are culpable as are Glasgow City Council. Between the two of them Fountainwell in the most part and Pinkston laterly have been allowed to decay to the point that they need to spend too much money on them now. Anyone else remember the cradle outside your bedroom window doing repairs as you lay in your bed during the summer? Any way, enough of this….F**k the GHA!!!! We are the people”””(of Sighthill that is)-Once from Sighthill always from Sighthill.

Glaswegians were promised that the creation of Culture and Sport Glasgow would not lead to charging for museums. predictably charges have been introduced. Services have also been altered, and in places marketised. The Arts and Culture magazine Variant has published an appraisal of the body, one year after its creation.

“More than the sum of its parts, the creation
of Culture and Sport Glasgow represents the
wholesale takeover of culture by business
interests. It posits a strategy for economic
regeneration that depends on the whims of elite
tourism and its pace of consumption in a period of
economic crisis. It demonstrates an ethos that is
smothering this city and others like it, regarding
culture solely in terms of its use value, stripped
of any emancipatory potential. Far from being
considered in terms of the universal creativity to
which every citizen has a right, culture in Glasgow
is framed in terms of passive participation and
money-making potential, with the city’s burghers
fast accumulating cultural capital in the process.
It remains to be seen how this approach will affect
the creativity of future generations as Glasgow’s
cultural communities are rendered impoverished
and complicit in the new Bohemia.”

The New Bohemia (an analysis of Culture and Sport Glasgow one year after its creation)

Event Flier: Workshops for an Active, Creative Community

Sunday 1^st June, 3pm

Woodside Halls,

Glenfarg St. / Clarendon St.

• Take your community forward

• Form a community plan

• Meet your neighbours and find out how to build for community action

• Build a coalition

• Tackle the GHA: How does it work?  How can we best put pressure on it?

• And much more besides!

Get in contact today to reserve your place!

glasgowresidentsnetwork@gmail.com

COMMUNITIES - WE ARE STRONGER WHEN WE STAND TOGETHER

Glasgow City Council has been accused of trying to privatise Direct and Care Services, by hiving jobs off to an Arms Length Management body. The move is widely seen as an attempt to avoid implementing wage rises to underpaid female DACS staff, which if DACS is retained by the Council, would have to be implemented as part of nationwide moves to stop sex discrimination in the workplace.

The Glasgow Residents Network would like to hear your views on this? Write in today, and we will publish your views!

The Glasgow Herald outlined some of the issues involved in a recent article:-

HERALD ARTICLE

From the BBC news website…

Large lily-shaped discs which harness solar power could soon be seen floating on the River Clyde.

The concept, from Glasgow-based ZM Architecture, has been handed to the city council with the hope that a trial project could go-ahead.

The proposal has already won the firm the International Design Awards (IDA) Land and Sea Competition.

Judges were impressed by the idea that energy harnessed on a river could help reduce a city’s carbon footprint.

In the IDA project description, ZM Architecture said its project proposed to stimulate river activity and change by using the surface to harness solar power on a large scale.

Rotating discs

The energy created would then be transformed and exported to the national grid.

The firm said the design of the lilypads was “inspired by nature” and they could be tethered to the river bed.

Integrated motors would then rotate the discs to follow the sun for maximum output.

ZM Architecture director, Peter Richardson, said: “We are delighted to be recognised for our commitment to providing alternative energy solutions and are excited about the potential of this idea in a range of contexts.”

The company hopes Glasgow City Council will be interested in developing a small pilot project in conjunction with the Science Centre.

Original BBC Article

Glasgow is facing a wave of gentrification.  The following short films (the next in the housing and community series Answer Time) are being aired in advance of the May Reshuffle in Govan, a community event for all the family.  The films address the theme of gentrification in Glasgow, a theme that the series hopes to address over the coming months, to give citizens of Glasgow the information to stand up and defend their communities.

DICTIONARY DEFINITION: Merriam-Webster

Main Entry:

gen·tri·fi·ca·tion

Pronunciation:

\ˌjen-trə-fə-ˈkā-shən\

Function:

noun

Date:

1964

: the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents

The May Reshuffle features community campaigners from across the pond, Movement for Justice in El Barrio.  The group are staging a tour of the UK, to make links with communities resisting gentrification here, and to raise awareness of their community’s plight.

– - — - — - — - — - — - — - –

HARLEM MEETS SCOTLAND

“We will not be moved!” Juan Haro of “Movement for Justice in El Barrio” is taking that message from the ground-breaking Harlem community group to Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh this month, as part of a European speaking tour. The renowned Greenwich Village Voice describes the group as “the best power to the people movement in New York City.”

The members of “Movement for Justice in El Barrio” are mainly poor Mexican immigrants. Having driven their previous landlord, millionaire Mr Kessner, out of East Harlem, they are now involved in a major battlewith new landlord, UK-based multinational Dawnay Day.

Juan Haro explains : “Driven by multi-national corporations and profit-seeking landlords and facilitated by city officials, gentrification has swept New York causing the grand-scale displacement of low-income people of colour and immigrants from our communities. East Harlem is experiencing a wave of harassment, abuse and intimidation in attempts by greedy landlords to evict us from our homes in order to raise rents and increaseprofits. Movement for Justice in El Barrio is fighting back: “We Will Not be Moved!!!”

The group accuses Dawnay Day of trying to drive its tenants out of their
homes by the imposition of illegal charges. Juan says “We are organizing
on a transnational level to combat displacement in El Barrio - East

Harlem - by building a multi-nationalnetwork to go after one of our main targets, the multi-national corporation Dawnay, Day Group at their central headquarters in London and on multiple continents where they hold property.” Dawnay Day also own the prestigious Carlton Hotel on Edinburgh’s North Bridge, and hotels in Troon and Stirling as part of
Paramount Hotel Group.

Movement for Justice in El Barrio is committed to a grass-roots way of organising, stating “the struggle for justice means fighting for the liberation of women, immigrants, lesbians, people of colour, gays and the transgender community.” They are part of “The Other Campaign”, an international extra-parliamentary movement initiated by Mexican indigenous rebels the Zapatistas.

MJB are keen to make links with community groups in Scotland. At the Edinburgh meeting they are being joined by a speaker from Save Our Old Town, campaigning for community-based change in Edinburgh’s Old Town, and against the “Caltongate” development.  In Glasgow they are taking part in the May Reshuffle and Radical Bookfair, an event hosted to bring together a range of community groups, campaigners, and Govanites, aimed at building community cohesion, and a fun day out for all the family.

• MJB has been active for 3 years, and has 400 members, tenants in privately-rented housing in mainly Hispanic East Harlem. They have launched an innovative form of local democracy, “a consultation of El Barrio”, in which 1,500 local people expressed their views on which issues the movement should take up and prioritise. This led the New York Daily News to state :”It is real grass-roots democracy, and it is being practised by the immigrants who live in East Harlem.”

• Meeting: 17 May, 2-4pm, Pearce Institute, 840 - 860 Govan Road. Glasgow G51 3UU.

IT’S funny how all the “clean up the city” campaign came around at the time of Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games bid! No one seemed to care before.

Underneath the Kingston Bridge, on the south side of the river, there is council-backed sports-style graffiti promoting the games. How ironic!

BRIAN JAMIESON, East Kilbride

The GRN would like to knnow what you have to say about this issue? Enigmatic posters are going up across the city centre, and the Evening Times has been sent a range of views. We want to know what residents of this city think in greater detail. Where does graffiti begin and a mural end? What kind of built environment do we want to live in? Is graffiti more instrusive than advertising? Or do you find your neighbourhood bombarded with illegal billboards and flyposting?

A number of people propose to have Glasgow become a transition town.

For further information on transition towns, see:-

http://transitionnetwork.org/Primer/TransitionInitiativesPrimer.pdf

The Glasgow Residents Network is aiming to promote a debate about this idea.

If you have any passionate thoughts or opinions on this idea we’d be really keen to hear from you.

MSP bids to make GHA accountable
by Marianne Taylor

GLASGOW Housing Association will be made more open to public scrutiny if a Glasgow MSP’s bid for a new law is successful.

Glasgow MSP Robert Brown wants GHA, Scotland’s biggest social landlord, to become subject to Freedom of Information legislation, bringing it in line with other public bodies such as councils, police forces and hospitals.

The legislation gives every citizen the right to access information about the inner workings of an organisation. However GHA, which manages 80,000 former council homes and a budget of hundreds of millions from the public purse, is not subject to FOI due to a loophole which exempts all housing associations.

The controversial loophole will be closed if Mr Brown’s Holyrood bill succeeds. GHA claims it has always worked “in the spirit” of FOI.

ET Reader Poll
Should the GHA fully comply with Freedom of Information laws?
Yes
89.8%
No
8.2%
Don’t know
2.0%

But critics, including politicians, housing campaigners, tenants and homeowners, have accused the organisation of being secretive.

The Evening Times has been calling for a change in the law for the last three years.

Mr Brown, a Liberal Democrat, said his bill would also apply to other organisations not currently covered by FOI - including private prisons - but that GHA was top of the list.

He said: “GHA has a huge influence on people’s lives - it’s about time they were opened up to public scrutiny.

“If there is nothing wrong, as bosses have claimed, then they have nothing to fear.”

Glasgow lawyer Mike Dailly, who campaigns on housing issues, said: “GHA has a very bad track record when it comes to being open and accountable.

“They more often than not appear secretive and reluctant to share information about themselves.

“Being subject to FOI would be a huge shock to the system for GHA.”

Scottish Information Commissioner Kevin Dunion said: “There is a strong argument to extend FOI to protect people’s rights where changes in service delivery put these under threat.

“For example, the transfer of housing to housing associations can mean residents are losing their rights to information.”

Publication date 24/04/08

RIVAL developers clashed at a public inquiry over major superstore plans.

Tesco is appealing a decision to refer a planning application for a development of supermarket and student flats at Partick, close to Glasgow Harbour to the Scottish Government.

[A 'Times reader comments]:-

The ET really need to get to grips on the planning system and provide accurate information.

Tesco arent appealing against a decision to refer a planning application to the SG. They are appealing to the SG against the non-determination of 2 planning applications by GCC.

Are your reporters nodding off while the Inquiry is on??

Read the full article…

On day two of the inquiry, Patrick Clarkson, representing Tesco, stated a plan by Glasgow Harbour to have a retail development on an adjacent site would be more detrimental to traffic in the area.
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However, he was interrupted by Glasgow Harbour representative Craig Conal who objected on the grounds his client’s proposal was not the subject of the inquiry.

Mr Clarkson said: “Glasgow Harbour with twice the retail space is claiming their traffic generation will be the same.”

Then, as he was questioning traffic expert Michael Summers, he asked what his assessment of the Glasgow Harbour plan would be.

Mr Conal objected, saying Mr Summers’s written precognition did not include any details of the Glasgow Harbour plan and questions on it were out of bounds.

Mr Clarkson added: “I have no doubt this is embarrassing for Glasgow Harbour. They are seeking to promote a scheme that’s twice as large with half the traffic.”

Earlier, the parties exchanged views on the need for an environmental impact assessment for the Tesco development.

Tesco claims a previous application which lapsed was screened for assessment and a new screening was not needed under planning laws.

Glasgow Harbour contended that the application stands on its own regardless and as such the procedure must be carried out.

The inquiry continues.

Publication date 24/04/08