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Mast draw up veteran accommodation plans

February 1 2012

Mast draw up veteran accommodation plans
Mast Architects on behalf of the Scottish Veterans Association have submitted plans for new residential accommodation and transitional support facilities at Bellrock Crescent, Glasgow.

The £5.4m development will entail construction of two distinct buildings, one providing 21 flats for social rent and another offering 30 short stay supported flats flanked by an adjacent office, training and recreational facility.

This is intended to provide returning veterans with ‘transitional’ support prior to re-entering the mainstream housing market.

Clad in facing brick, render and zinc cladding panels the development will feature a two storey front of house area facing Bellrock Crescent with three storeys of flats rising behind.
The scheme aims to impart life skills and confidence to tenants
The scheme aims to impart life skills and confidence to tenants
The Scottish Government are supporting the scheme, which should reduce incidences of homelessness
The Scottish Government are supporting the scheme, which should reduce incidences of homelessness

15 Comments

Sven
#1 Posted by Sven on 2 Feb 2012 at 08:23 AM
Bellrock Crescent, as in Cranhill? Can the Veterans Association not find a more salubrious place? It sits between the M8 and Old Edinburgh Road so it polluted and the area is blighted by drugs. Does placing the houses in this area fill the criteria that is "intended to provide returning veterans with ‘transitional’ support prior to re-entering the mainstream housing market." by making them so uncomfortable that they want to leave?
Hannibal
#2 Posted by Hannibal on 2 Feb 2012 at 11:54 AM
Sven, good to see that you like so many others have written off the east end of the city joining others who utilise this site as a platform for their ill informed comments.
Jimbob Tanktop
#3 Posted by Jimbob Tanktop on 2 Feb 2012 at 15:19 PM
Sven, the east end is about 3% as bad as your imagination seems to indicate.
Sven
#4 Posted by Sven on 2 Feb 2012 at 15:32 PM
@ Hannibal, my comments are informed and I just tell it as I see it. I know the east end of Glasgow very well and I remember going pass Bellrock Crescent before the hovel tenements were demolished. If you think the area is nice or safe or in any way a nice place to live then you need to get out more. Would you want to live in Cranhill and let you children go to local schools and join local gangs? No you would not and neither would the people living there if they had the choice.

@ Jimbob Tanktop - whilst I do not think the east end of Glasgow is not all bad there are rotten areas that require more than replacing 1950-70's tenements with more tenements.
Big Yin
#5 Posted by Big Yin on 2 Feb 2012 at 17:25 PM
@ Sven, your comments on the social situation in the east end may be valid, but I ask you how you expect regeneration of these areas ever to take place in order to erradicate such 'hovels'? It sounds liketo me that you think we should neglect these areas further and allow them to become much worse than you already percieve them to be.
Sven
#6 Posted by Sven on 2 Feb 2012 at 20:31 PM
@ Big Yin, good question. I would start by mixing the housing types (yes I know the housing market is bad) so that there are not swathes of social housing, but mixed private and social. I would stop the building of tenements and flats to detached and semi-detached houses. There is lots of vacant land that can accommodate that. I would also lessen the amount of 'open space' as that attracts gang fighting with Barlanark etc. Fence it off and plant trees.

I would also attract more businesses to the area by creating zones - it is close to the M8 so you can make a virtue out of it and position is good as no need to go over the Kingston Bridge. I appreciate that for Cranhill there is a large industrial zone at Queenslie, a retai parkl at Easterhouse (Glasgow Fort) and the Glasgow Business Park also at Easterhouse.

I would also have more police on the beat and make the council/housing associations look after the area - no litter blowing about the streets, no graffiti, no broken windows. That might sound naive but people are more likely to look after an area the better the area is upkept - conversely they are more likely to vandalise and behave in anti-social ways if an area has broken window, closes covered in graffiti, litter everywhere.
D to the R
#7 Posted by D to the R on 2 Feb 2012 at 21:40 PM
.... has no-one noticed that this scheme looks like a poor mans crap?
Rambo
#8 Posted by Rambo on 3 Feb 2012 at 20:11 PM
Is it really as bad as a 'poor man's crap'? It looks ok to me but I'm not an architect. Surely the brave men and women of GB who will use this building should be the judges of that!
Sven
#9 Posted by Sven on 3 Feb 2012 at 22:30 PM
@ 7 and 8 - yes the designs look banal and 'crap'. They look very early 2000 stone and metal and wood flats that haunt almost every city in the world.
dirige
#10 Posted by dirige on 4 Feb 2012 at 11:05 AM
I actually like the brick gables (so long as they manage neat flashing at the parapet) and the block units between the, er, 'fins'. But it does seem a bit hap-hazard with different styles and shapes in each image, maybe a case of using all the tools in the box? The rainscreen panels on the third image are seen all over glasgow in various states of misalignment, peeling, falling off etc, so have become a bit of a motif for badly build 2000-2007 Westpoint homes-type developments.
Rambo
#11 Posted by Rambo on 4 Feb 2012 at 12:21 PM
What new buildings are any good in Glasgow? They all look the same to me. Do all you architects get one big book to share at university? Maybe builders could design better?
D to the R
#12 Posted by D to the R on 4 Feb 2012 at 13:02 PM
In all seriousness though ... how do architects engender a sense of belonging and ownership in areas like this ... it aint by putting some galvy railings around and area, which i'm sure on the plan is titled as 'garden' .... come on - must do better
dirige
#13 Posted by dirige on 4 Feb 2012 at 20:39 PM
Rambo: if you were involved in any sector of the construction industry you would realise the irony of your comment. I think you must have stumbled across the wrong website, Mumsnet is that way -->
belle
#14 Posted by belle on 6 Feb 2012 at 02:24 AM
i think this is a decent project with limited resources that is used well.
Walt Disney
#15 Posted by Walt Disney on 6 Feb 2012 at 13:26 PM
It looks fine to me. M&ST have done some great stuff out at Erskine with a tight budget. It probably wont satisfy the cool kids on the block though as it hasn't come straight out of this month's AR.

Surelly there is a massive difference between design being of its time and place and just being a slavish fashion victim?

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