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Glasgow's Holland Street steps up a level

June 13 2025

Glasgow's Holland Street steps up a level

Glasgow's Avenues programme has taken a significant step forward with the completion of public realm works to Holland and Pitt Street.

4,000sq/m of new public space along both routes include tree lined streets, widened pavements with a Caithness stone finish, segregated cycle lanes and green landscaping.

Councillor Angus Millar commented: “Right now, our city centre is going through its biggest transition in half a century.  The population is increasing, new sectors are emerging, investment is flowing in and infrastructure put in place. With the Holland and Pitt Avenue, we’re beginning to see how that’s shaping up.”

The City Deal initiative forms part of a broader effort centred on George Square to spruce up the city, creating a more pedestrian focussed environment in the process.

Moda Group, the developer behind Holland Park, contributed to the landscaping effort
Moda Group, the developer behind Holland Park, contributed to the landscaping effort
The Scottish & UK governments each contributed £2.4m to the transformation
The Scottish & UK governments each contributed £2.4m to the transformation

9 Comments

Jake Janobs
#1 Posted by Jake Janobs on 13 Jun 2025 at 10:03 AM
I regularly walk through this area and am relieved that the work if finally complete. It looks ok, but I'm puzzled by a detail - there are trees planted on Holland Street, which I understood were to play a role in managing drainage sustainably, but they are on a slope, uphill from the rest of the pavement. How does that work? There's also a drain at the corner of Holland St and W Regent St which is higher than the road, allowing a massive puddle to form whenever it rains. Will be interesting to see how this area turns out once something happens with the old Glasgow academy building.
Nico
#2 Posted by Nico on 13 Jun 2025 at 11:02 AM
Walked through there the other week. The quality of materials and finish looked first class. If this is what's being rolled out across the city centre at present and over the next few years it will make a long overdue and significant positive change.
EM0
#3 Posted by EM0 on 13 Jun 2025 at 11:37 AM
Number 2 - Sadly it is not, the quality on Sauchiehall is atrocious and Cowcaddens Road they ripped up tarmac pavements to put more tarmac down, not the same stone or anywhere near the same finish sadly!
James Hepburn
#4 Posted by James Hepburn on 13 Jun 2025 at 12:19 PM
Just more flower beds that will be filled with weeds within a year. What a waste of money. GCC can't even keep the existing streets clean.
Ben
#5 Posted by Ben on 13 Jun 2025 at 13:49 PM
This is world class, and a standard that should be followed across the rest of Scotland. Sauchiehall isn't quite the same quality, but still really good and a vast improvement on what was there before. Cambridge Street is also looking fantastic with the planting starting to come in. The centre of Glasgow's public realm is going to be outstanding within a few years.
Millek
#6 Posted by Millek on 13 Jun 2025 at 16:09 PM
If this were Edinburgh, could have a sweep stake for when the first tarmac scar will appear through the middle.
Gord
#7 Posted by Gord on 13 Jun 2025 at 21:36 PM
First class? World class? Are you seeing the same images that the rest of us are? This is as bog-standard as it gets...
Roddy_
#8 Posted by Roddy_ on 14 Jun 2025 at 00:34 AM
By the standards of the best European exemplars, this is par for the course. Not bad, not great, but the minimum that we might expect. The materials are better and sharper than much of what we've seen of the Avenues thus far. The granite seats in the second image probably looked great on the drawings -and they look great in photos too. They are horrible to sit on - especially for the elderly, infirm and mobility impaired not to mention pregnant mums. It actually shows a real disdain for people to have such hostile architecture in place that is nominally meant to invite walking and sitting.

Alas Sauchiehall St is something of an embarrassment. It really does appear like it will have a life of about 5 years before it will look out-moded and in need of further renewal. A 'refresh' for the street was simply not what was required and it doesn't reach the threshold of quality that was promised at consultation (I was there). At the very last consultation exercise, I implored that whatever the design, please, please don't make it cluttered, think about an arts strategy (ie embedding art in the fabric of the street) and make it people-centred. So much for it being a listening exercise. Those lights - that they used on the upper section of the street - like d*ldoes on sticks - are among the worst I've seen anywhere. Please do not, I repeat do not use them anywhere else.

The design was dreich but the workmanship and working practices were also crap - mortar smears everywhere and if you monitored the street when it was a building site - you'd have seen the unplanted root-ball trees lying with the roots drying out and on their side in mortar dust and mortar snots. I reckon there will be quite a few that don't make it through the winter and some look poorly already . A landscape architect friend of mine concurs. We shall see. If they had even followed the paradigm of Buchanan St, now 25 years old, they'd have gotten away with it but this was done on the cheap, was badly designed from the off and the contractor didn't do a good job. A sort of perfect storm alongside the manufactured consent of multiple public consultations. I'm trying really hard to see any positives in it but I can't. Not good.
Tom
#9 Posted by Tom on 14 Jun 2025 at 00:37 AM
Some of these must be council comments - it’s not standard at best. Looks better than it did. There’s a drain above the rest of the level causing puddles- the trees are in odd places. Really confused why there’s so many good comments it’s better but not great

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