1. Under the clouds
I left home in Fife and went to live in Glasgow when I was eighteen. When I think of it now, the distance seems laughably small – forty miles, little more than an hour in the train – but the contrast between a village on the east coast and a city, Scotland’s largest, on the west coast was sharp and exciting. I had a bedsit in a dark street of better-class tenements, with a Polish delicatessen, a dance hall and a cinema just round the corner. Glasgow seemed an infinite place, never to be known completely no matter how many suburban bus terminals you reached or exploratory walks you made. It was 1963. The last trams had run the year before, but the city was still much its old self – smoke-blackened, run-down, Victorian, majestic, tipsy on beer and whisky on a Saturday night, hushed on a Sunday. More than a million people lived there then; forty years later, that figure had almost halved.
A number of employees are currently self-isolating after two workers tested positive for the virus. The Glasgow Times understands one worker is currently being treated in hospital for their symptoms. Subcontractors for the Sighthill Transformational Regeneration Area, Morgan Sindall, have drafted in lateral flow tests to prevent any further Covid transmission. A spokesman for Morgan Sindall said: “At Morgan Sindall Infrastructure the health and wellbeing of our people, partners and the public is our overriding priority. Across all our operations we are strictly following government guidance and the Construction Scotland Site Operating Procedures. “Two individuals involved in delivering our Sighthill TRA project have tested positive for Covid-19.
Last November, the deadline for bids was extended to allow developers more time due to Covid restrictions. It is the Glasgow Times understanding that the new deadline for bids will be at the end of next week. Campaigners who want the land retained for social housing have begun an occupation of the site and are preparing for a stand-off. Living Rent want to prevent the sale of the land to any private developer. Their argument is land that was previously social housing should only be used for social housing in the future. Meanwhile the council says that mixed tenure is the successful model that supports sustainable communities across the city.