December 19 2019

Glasgow City Council has completed a £7.4m green infrastructure project designed to introduce new parks and enhance existing greenspace throughout Easterhouse, Blairtummock, Cranhill and Ruchazie.

The surface water management programme delivered by RJ McLeod will reduce flood risk in the area, opening up additional land for housing as part of the Glasgow City Region City Deal.

This re-establishes ‘blue networks’ of restored local burns and introducing new footpaths, with further planting and landscaping to take place in the spring.

Dr Mike Cantlay OBE, chair of Scottish Natural Heritage said: “The scale of this project was ambitious, with a total area equivalent to more than thirty Hampden Parks transformed from vacant and derelict land into attractive urban parks and green corridors.

“Its completion has taken us a step closer to creating a nature-rich future for everyone in Scotland by improving biodiversity, creating better habitat for wildlife, helping to mitigate climate change and reduce flood risk and connecting more people with nature, with all of the many mental and physical health benefits that brings.”

Designs developed by Sweco have improved connections to the nearby Seven Lochs Wetland Park and Provan Hall, alongside restoring floodplains which serve as habitat for grassland water voles.

11 Comments

#1 Posted by Andy Pandy on 19 Dec 2019 at 12:05 PM

jings...they went all out on that bridge....ooff!

#2 Posted by weiird on 19 Dec 2019 at 12:44 PM

How about planting larger, and more trees.

#3 Posted by cck on 19 Dec 2019 at 13:20 PM

Really? All I see is more and more new housing being built - not a lot of green. The 'loch' where the Fort is could be great but often has empty bottles and trolley carts lying around it and the street lights have been out of action for the last month ...

#4 Posted by Alistair Houston on 19 Dec 2019 at 14:05 PM

Beautiful, reminds me of the 18th at St Andrew's.

#5 Posted by Troy on 19 Dec 2019 at 17:23 PM

Wouldn't be out of place at Parc de la Villette

#6 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 19 Dec 2019 at 20:33 PM

Absurd waste of money producing nothing but brownie points for the local oxygen thieves.

Incredible that this money has been spent in an area full of poor quality potholed roads, cracked sewers and a library with holes in the roof.

Shameful that the area once contained football pitches that have been sacrificed for some pitiful green washing and a tick box press release.

#7 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 19 Dec 2019 at 20:34 PM

And the workmanship and detail design is shocking.

File under tripe and nonsense.

#8 Posted by Asimov on 20 Dec 2019 at 13:31 PM

I just can't stop laughing. Everything wrong with Scottish architecture, landscaping and urbanism in one picture.

#9 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 23 Dec 2019 at 23:13 PM

The reality is even worse than the press release.

A £7.4mill spend to build a medium scale SUDS pond and some low rent planting -- the trees look really cheap and immature and are bent already after a winter's gale.

All within earshot of the "spring-breaker" potholes that litter Aberdalgie Rd and the rain forest library with its continual leaks.

Whoever signed this off deserves a gold medal in spending other peoples money.

Absolute disgrace -- and yet it gets press release PR as a matter of course rather than hard questions over value for money and opportunity cost.

#10 Posted by InspireMe on 29 Dec 2019 at 17:35 PM

Wow. Tippifies infrastructure projects in the uk. Boring stock items from a mundane catalogue. Very poor standard of workmanship. No imagination. And all for a ludicrously high price. There are so many great examples of infrastructure projects in the Netherlands, but the uk seems to strive for mediocrity.

#11 Posted by Sven on 9 Jan 2020 at 17:09 PM

My father lived in various farms around what is now Easterhouse as a boy and saw the area move from farms and several country estates to a council estate. The land where the above work was done a football pitch for Westwood secondary and before that was a loch with an island (full of rabbits according to my dad). It floods as it is a natural spring and even the red ash for the pitches never stopped it - you can see it in the picture below. To spend £7m on that is insane - I hope Audit Scotland does an audit.

https://www.theglasgowstory.com/images/TGSE00506.jpg

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