A familiar scene. Huge clouds of smoke wafting into the city centre as flames lick ferociously at the roof of a treasured building. A torrent of rain hammering down on clusters of spectators, adding insult to injury. Another beautiful piece of Glasgow’s built heritage left to wreck and ruin.
I can hardly blame the person that set the former Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice on fire earlier this week. It’s the second time this year a fire has broken out at the row of Georgian townhouses that line the banks of the River Clyde. An old cannabis farm inside the building was torched in January. Glasgow City Council was alerted in April that drug users had moved in after the fire. But the building was never properly secured despite its importance to the city and the city’s history. If the local government doesn’t care, why should the squatters?
The anger that boils up within me makes me feel like ripping my skin off. Glasgow is not blessed with much natural beauty. There are no snow tipped mountains to look up at, no coastline on which to watch the sunset. The beauty of the city is in its architecture. And the parks when they cut the grass. Every time the council allows for a piece of the city’s history to fall into disrepair or dereliction it’s a blow to the heart. It’s like the city is on pause, in limbo, waiting for buildings to topple so abstract foreign developers can turn them into student boxes. Who wants to live in purgatory? Maybe we should just raze everything and turn the city into a big parking lot.
(Image: GT)
Glasgow has more derelict buildings than any other city in Scotland. A lot of them are owned by the........