I thought FBOT won the contract with his mooted accelerated program? Was it the collateral warranties that let you down?

Alas, these public authorities and their major public realm projects are a fickle and short-sighted bunch...:)

I genuinely can't understand how this is going to take eighteen months,I'm working on a building site looking down on George Square and every man on that site is astounded to know that they'll basically grow a bit of grass and clean a few statues...as before and after pictures are no different, stunning waste of £20million and depriving Glasgow of George square.

£20.5mill for a Q+D spruce up of George Square when we have a £1.5mill funding gap for the 3 listed buildings in the Calton with plans to deliver much needed social housing.

£20.5mill spend for a very light refresh of the square when we have the DIY waste tips on Lochend Road and Commonhead Road.

£20.5mill spend on re-surfacing a perfectly adequate public space when street cleaning and road repairs have been reduced to a performance art level -- high days and holidays -- instead of the public service that we need.

And now it is going to take 24 months to complete -- this is student level politics at its worst.

This is just spending other peoples money just for the sake of it.

@#2

And we have another! Perhaps you and FBOT could go into the cost project management biz together. :)

Please share your proposed program for the works. :)

I think folk should worry less about the project timescale and more about the value engineering that is happening. The proposed water feature looks to have been pulled (from the committee report above) :

2.5 'Whilst there was an aspiration in early design stages to include a water feature
as part of the redevelopment plans, this was removed from the tender
documents to ensure that there was sufficient project budget to undertake the
core works. Given the value of the landed tender for the Block C project, there
is insufficient project budget remaining to include the water feature and it no
longer forms part of the project scope.'

Many folk, myself included, rather hoped that this meant that the square's days of use as a theme park were numbered - ie the western half of the square becomes a feature that is open but is no longer appropriate for these kind of events. Without the water feature, it is just an open flat piece of square available again to the highest bidder. I thought this iteration of the square would mean that last of that. Over and above this, it seems that a promised and supposedly integral part of the design is now lost because somehow they undercooked the budget (or over-promised on the design).

I expect the local press will pick up on this fairly quickly (they will if they read this) and they can add it to their repertoire of Sauchiehall St bashing. This is something of an own-goal given that spades are about to go in the ground. The recent outside exhibition boards in the square did well to bury this - or - at least to ensure zero mention of this exclusion from the blue network. Poor, poor form... :(

Couple more things to report. The design for a water feature was clearly included in a tranche of drawings badged as 'George Square Final Developed Plan' (ie to RIBA stage 4) per this committee report below and NOT just an 'aspiration in early design stages'. This is a triangulation in language worthy of Pravda.

https://onlineservices.glasgow.gov.uk/councillorsandcommittees/viewDoc.asp?c=P62AFQDN81ZL0GUTDN

Also interestling the council seemingly were warning in 2023 that the water feature was planned “subject to serviceability and site conditions”.

https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/scottish-news/23969325.fresh-images-show-george-square-transformed/

Quite why this is so - given that site conditions are only usually established on-site and serviceability can easily be gleaned from systems deployed elsewhere - seems to be setting the proposal up to be removed. ie hedging their bets.

It all seems very...erm...odd.

I am actually glad the water feature has been removed, it was not going to be a Trafalgar Square type fountain, but rather water jets incorporated into the paving. I believe that post redevelopment, the tacky theme park type uses of the square will be relocated to Glasgow Green, there is a recognition from the council that the expensive stone surfaces and more intricate planting could be damaged if it reverts to such uses afterwards.

@ Ben #7

Yeah - it may well divide opinion, but the point is/was that it was part of the agreed scheme that had been put out to consultation, given backing and incorporated into finalised drawings. The fact that it has been pulled at such a late stage is, well, as I've said earlier, a real own goal on the part of the council. Can you point to where the council has acknowledeged this aversion to private uses and the potential damage? I am willing to put money on it hosting private/tented/ events or exhibitions within the year of its opening.

Anyone know what the wee orange box at the foot of the Scott mounument that looks like a 1940's news stand?

This part of the square is now a large, unrelieved open plaza with little in the way of the spatial or material definition that the water feature would have provided. Notice too how Victoria and Albert just get unceremoniously dumped ( in effect just left where they are) on the edge of the plaza with little or no rhyme or reason.Presumably as another cost-cutting excercise. Creates a kind of imbalance and goes against the really intricate narrative of the positioning of the statuary. Looks odd.

Whether you like it or not, it seems to have pulled the rug from under the McAslan's design narrative given that it was meant to be the centrepiece of essentially one half of the square. The council are clearly trying to deflect from this and I think awkward questions need to be asked. One of those questions should be - has the current design been future proofed so that the square COULD be retro-fitted with a water feature in the future ?

This shamefully poor, unambitious and glacially slow scheme still seemingly being decided after going onto site?

It seems it's defenders are slowly coming in from the cold as the designs are further reduced and the time frame further extended but still can't admit it to their FAT BOT nemesis.

If only these avalanches of warm words could be translated into positive logical physical actions.

Then we might live in a dynamic forward thinking city rather than a ham-strung, colonial backwater rapidly headed for deeper transport chaos, dereliction and ongoing ruination of sustainable local small businesses.

@#9
'Timeframe further extended' - you must know something that we don't, perhaps even the project team don't know. Don't be shy, please expand.

Same with all the avenues projects, there seemed to be no understanding of what they could achieve until they moved on site. So, when you started asking what had happened to planned trees and breakout spaces etc, you were told it was issues with underground facilities. Why they didn't investigate these areas before doing visuals is beyond me. In the end the finished product in most areas has hardly been worth the disruption!

24 months seems longer than 18 months to full completion.

N'est-ce pas?

Cue new torrent of warm words from then some pointless questioning and he said she said whataboutery that changes none of the cold hard facts of failure and waste.

We can all do a lot better than this.

@#12

For the avoidance of doubt - there are 2 contracts which the 2nd image above shows very clearly and which the article makes abundantly clear. Note also, if you read the committee report that there is no mention of the number of months of the contract duration rather that:

• Phase 1 - which includes the whole of the square , St Vincent Place and West George Street (completion Aug 2026) I make that 15 months
• Phase 2- which includes Cochrane St, George St and North Hanover Street (completion spring 2027). In the abscence of a start date, this is impossible to determine contract length. However, if you choose to infer that it starts when Phase 1 works are complete, then it could be 7 months (to March 20th) or 10 months ( to June 21st)

It helps to read the article n'est-ce pas?

First rule of holes -- If you are in one then better to stop digging.
Second rule of holes -- When you stop remember you are still in a hole.
Third Rule of Holes -- Better to be quiet and crawl out with dignity than shout from the bottom and attract a crowd.

George Square is the poster child of Council waste / lack of energy / public sector laziness for our generation.

The bill remains the same but we get less and less with every passing review / report / redesign.

Currently £20mill plus for a few statues tarted up / some new paving / some grass borders.

No matter the limited workload George Square plus part of the adjacent roads will be out of bounds for 18 months and will be followed by 9 months of further carnage in nearby streets.
The centre of town will be a warzone for the next two years and some suggest we should be grateful -- aye right ya zoomer / yer da sells Avon / away oot and play tig with the buses.

Even by SEG / GCC / Nat student politics standards this is a shocking waste of money -- too much white collar effort and all too little blue collar involvement.

I wonder if statue maintenance is very specialised / high margin work?

@ #14
FBOT was the first paragraph here your opening remarks in your proposed accelerated project program preamble ? :)
We will look to these remarks with increasing regret as the project moves forward and the fact your sage-like wisdom and observations didn't win the day. Ultimately we are all in the shadow of such dizzying intellect.
Alas.

P.S.
Can you enlighten us as to what a reasonable project budget should be? :)

Is that with or without the water feature?
Apples for apples comparisons are usually for the better.

George Square project timings -- I wish some people would save the smugness for its completion.

Many a slip between cup and lip ...

You know the script -- waking up in the morning and the water feature was gone.

It doesn't matter how the apparatchiks break it down and style it up with their various word salads.

It is just too meek, weak, slow, wasteful, disorganised and generally way below par for a once great city's main square and environs.

Avenues projects have already failed so why keep banging your head off the same brick wall?

I fed into the consultation and was broadly supportive of it due to the water feature as I thought it marked a departure for Glasgow and something a bit more contemporary. Pretty outrageous that they can unilaterally remove it like this. * thumbs down emoji *

The last comparable public realm project in Glasgow was Buchanan Street, 25 years ago. Its stated cost was £10 million (£18.7 million in todays money). As the budget and surface area of the George Square works are both about 10% larger, I would have thought the cost seems as you would expect for such a scope.

@ #16
Och come on FBOT - don't be so modest - let's hear your figure - with or without or both - you choose. Your previous posts seem to assert an excessive budget and project program. All we're asking is for you to share your inside track on costings and timescale.
Don't be shy now...

OMG -- reading the room needs to be on the curriculum for amateur masterplanners.

In other news -- Screwfix has a flash sale on ladders.
The discount code is "Riddy50%".
Batter in.

@ #21

Your really are a modest fellow. Stop hiding your light under a bushel and let us know what the real costs are - or perhaps go get that dicounted ladder and pull yourself out of that hole you dug for yourself. :) :)

No need for a ladder -- no holes being dug locally.

A bit like George Square where slow motion indolence is the work vibe on offer.

Joke of a project from start to finish.
New paving a few trees being treated like was a new pyramid in Giza.

Low energy stuff getting the full AI inspired press release treatment.

Not good.

I always look forward to FBOT's comedy turns. I think he might actually be an AI comedy bot given the st..acca..to structure of his posts and tangential thought processes.
Funny nevertheless. We're lucky he is commenting here and not in comments section of the Evening Times.
'slow motion indolence' is a keeper...:) :) :)

So, the ladders then:

Handy for escaping the very deep rabbit holes of whataboutery denial of time/cost logic?

Or more likely, for a dignified descent from the ivory towers of virtue signalling nonsense erected around the failed avenues projects and George Square's stunningly modest, costly and slow paving rethink?