More on Green spaces

More Articles on green spaces in the Herald

For more than 100 years, Glasgow's bowling greens, sports clubs and parks have given the city's people a chance to relax, play or just take a weekend stroll. Now concern is growing for these dear green places as more and more are lost forever. In some areas, especially the sought-after west end, a tennis-court- sized piece of land can be worth up to £6m, which means vacant space is at a premium for any kind of development.
Last week, Victoria Park in Scotstoun became the latest to be threatened. Glasgow City Council plans to build a car park with 600 spaces on disused sports pitches, fell up to 20 trees and construct a new access road and driveway through the park.
The decision provoked consternation among local people and pressure groups, who say that, one by one, their recreation areas are disappearing.
Audrey Gardner, of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, believes the green patches laid out by the Victorian designers are a vital foundation of its character.
"Green spaces were a huge part of the character of the area," she says. "These are popular with developers and are now undoubtedly being targeted. We are up against a policy of 'densification'."
For residents in the west of Glasgow, the Victoria Park plans are just the latest concern. Strathclyde University recently agreed to sell Jordanhill College, the 41-acre site that has been home to teacher-training for more than 80 years. Students and staff will move to a £52m purpose-built building in the city centre.
But local people are concerned that any large-scale housing developments on the playing fields at Jordanhill, would mark another significant loss of green space.
The issue nationally has provoked the Scottish Executive to recommend national minimum standards be established to provide open spaces around new housing, shopping and industrial developments.
Research commissioned by the executive has suggested a new Scottish planning policy be introduced. Currently, there are no national guidelines on the provision of open spaces – planning committees and officials deal with each case on its merits. A new policy could mean an end to confusion among local authorities over how much open space, and what kind, is required.
Glasgow's city plan, which is currently under review, ensures the green spaces the council deems most important, in terms of wildlife, plants and landscape, are protected. The guidelines set a target of approximately 12 acres of recreational green space per 1000 people within the plan's 20-year timeframe.
Robert McBean, convener of the council's development applications sub-committee, did not want to comment on specific cases but said the quantity and quality of green spaces in the city had actually improved.
"The regenerated new neighbourhoods, such as Gorbals, Oatlands and Drumchapel, are all about delivering more green space, which is of a better quality," he said. "Under the council's policies, any green space removed (by a development) has to be replaced elsewhere and we have been strict about that."
However, John Mason, the council's SNP opposition leader and a member of the planning committee, said the rules were still weighted in favour of developers. "We have green spaces being eaten away all the time and I am suspicious of that. The guidelines need to be tightened up.
"The council can get developers to pay a penalty if they don't create enough green space. But the council accepts that payment too readily.
"I feel there should be a presumption against any proposed developments. We have no third-party right of appeal and things are far too slanted in favour of developers."

One by one, owners have been tempted into turning over land for development. In Glasgow's west end alone, the list is a long one. Woodend Tennis and Bowling Club in Jordanhill has sold off some courts to make way for a row of townhouses. The struggling club agreed to sell the land for nine homes to pay off debts.
North Kelvinside lies between the River Kelvin and the Forth and Clyde Canal and is now also at the centre of a row over the possible sale of football pitches for housing.
However, it is Glasgow's Dowanhill, and the potential sale of its tennis club, where the issues are most vividly put into focus.
The club members stand to receive £100,000 if their land is sold to developers. Campaigners against the move include MSPs Pauline McNeill, Bill Aitken and Patrick Harvie, who have warned that Glasgow's green spaces are disappearing before our eyes.
Ms McNeill has urged the lord advocate to step in to investigate the sale of the club as it could be saved if it is classified as a community trust.
"I appreciate Glasgow has good provision in the number of parks and gardens," she says, "but I have become increasingly concerned at the number of sports grounds being sold for development.
"In my own constituency, the area is already crammed with buildings and some of the green space is under threat. I want stronger protection for the green spaces that exist."
The council's financial services committee has said it will ensure recreation areas are retained for the public good through tax relief.
It has recommended clubs receive relief on their non-domestic rates bills only if their constitutions are amended to require that any surplus income, or gains, will be reinvested in the club or passed to another.
Ewan Kennedy of the Glasgow Green Space Trust, founded last year to preserve recreational ground, says action is needed now. "These recreational spaces were a fundamental part of the fabric of living in Victorian Glasgow. It is horrendous that so many are being lost or threatened. Developing on the sites is akin to putting up a block of flats in the New Town in Edinburgh.
"We have areas that were an integral part of Victorian and Edwardian Glasgow and they are being allowed to disappear almost overnight."/span>