As we look back on another busy year, it is beneficial to take time to reflect on the positive developments as well as the challenges our city has faced.
At times, 2024 has been extremely difficult for Glasgow with yet further frustrating erosion of our city’s unique built heritage. The unnecessary demolition of the O2 ABC facade on Sauchiehall Street, the emergency demolition of the India Buildings on Bridge Street and two fires gutting the former hospice on Carlton Place were all significant blows.
Cuts to the city’s budget continued to cause harm, with the SNP Council administration cutting 172 teaching posts this year and will remove a total of 450 teachers from city schools in the coming three years – a staggering move that will jeopardise the futures of our young people. Failing to invest in the education of our young Glaswegians is a dereliction of social justice and the impact of such a scandalous decision will cast a dark shadow for decades to come.
Last December, I expressed the hope in this column that 2024 could be the year that Glasgow finally gets to grips with its fractured and dysfunctional public transport system, with many opportunities for improvement – such as the Subway modernisation programme and bus franchising – on the horizon.
After years of campaigning by groups such as Get Glasgow Moving, of which I am proud to be a founding member, I was pleased that SPT signalled their desire in March to move forward with establishing a bus franchise for Greater Glasgow and I know the team are working hard to improve our buses so that they will serve the public rather than private interests once more. It was also a big change for the Subway with the new trains finally coming into service, and I managed to save several of the much-loved 1980 fleet from the scrapyard, finding new homes for some of the wee orange cars across Glasgow and beyond.
In January, working alongside a committed group of residents, and against all the odds, we managed to ensure that Reidvale Housing Association in Dennistoun remained community owned. Reidvale is a pioneer in community housing; formed in 1975 by the residents that refused to budge when the Glasgow Corporation condemned their tenements for demolition. Instead, they saved and renovated the old sandstone tenements, creating a better model than the wholesale clearance of Glasgow’s traditional inner-city neighbourhoods in the name of slum clearance.
When a huge London-based property group came literally chapping at their doors looking to take over the 900 properties, residents were rightly dubious about their intentions – sparking a grassroots campaign to keep Reidvale owned and managed by those that live there. And despite all the rhetoric about community wealth building, SNP politicians were nowhere to be seen on the campaign.
With a new Housing Bill coming through the Scottish Parliament in the New Year, I will be pushing to ensure that the Housing Regulator is obliged to protect community-controlled housing associations rather than facilitating lucrative takeovers by housing giants looking to expropriate the community’s assets. I think this would be a fitting legacy as we mark half a century of community housing associations in Glasgow in 2025.
Looking ahead to the new year, the budget process will be in full swing. The SNP failed to present a draft budget that offers hope to Scots and instead offered real-terms cuts disguised as investment.
As I did last year, while defending the jobs of community-link workers in our city’s GP surgeries, I will be working with UNISON to prevent cuts to community health workers as proposed by the HSCP.
The challenge across the political divide next year is to prove that politics can be a force for good and that government can improve things; but inflicting further devastating cuts, like those planned by the SNP, will only serve to further alienate voters.
The new Labour government has given the Scottish Government its largest ever budget settlement for Christmas. The First Minister must now resist the urge to be Scotland’s scrooge and make the big investments necessary so we can build a better Glasgow after a decade of austerity.
You can read my column on the Glasgow Times website here: https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/24804362.lets-keep-working-build-better-glasgow-2025/
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