C O N T E X T 1 7 1 : M A R C H 2 0 2 2 31 CHANGE ON THE HIGH STREET city’s stone buildings, were the determinants of poverty and ill health. This work led to a change in direction in national policy. The demolition and clearance of stone buildings was halted and replaced with a regeneration programme to improve existing housing and maintain communities within their neighbourhoods. Regeneration, 1980–2015 As the 20th century closed, Glasgow embarked on a third era, characterised by renewal, regeneration and cultural renaissance that rebuilt the city’s reputation for life and place. David Bookbinder, director of West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations, says: ‘From the beginning of community-based associations in Glasgow, the involvement of tenants… has built a movement to make the housing and housing management better in the city.’ Fraser Stewart, director of New Gorbals Housing Association, explains: ‘When work started in the New Gorbals in the 1990s, there was… a lot of political and community activism… a real desire to change things. The critical factors were control of the land, a project champion, and political and official support through the city. A master plan is essential. The Gorbals community owns… our housing, and from ownership flows control. They are in charge, they own the housing, they own the process. We want the best of modern design, which we were promised and never got in the 1960s, and we want the best of tenement living, which we had before the 1960s.’ In an era-defining moment in 2003, Glasgow’s tenants voted for the voluntary transfer of cityowned housing to a newly established, city-wide Glasgow Housing Association. Development funding was transferred to Glasgow City Council as the strategic housing authority to deliver affordable housing to meet the city’s diverse and changing needs, and to enable Glasgow to move forward with a housing-led regeneration programme shaped by local communities. ‘The Glasgow Housing Association is extremely proud of creating better homes, better lives and a better Glasgow through regenerating communities and handing power back to people to improve their lives,’ says Bernadette Hewitt, chair of Glasgow Housing Association. ‘The partnership working that we have established has been key in propelling our ambitions forward. GHA would not have been able to achieve what we have without excellent partnership with Glasgow City Council, with the Scottish Government and with other stakeholders.The tenant voice [needs to be] at the core of every decision. As a tenant myself, that gives me comfort.’ Decarbonisation and a green transition, 2015–2030–2050 By the end of the first decade of this century, Glasgow had established eight transformation regeneration areas with a 10–15year programme to deal with areas of the city still scarred by mid-20th-century deindustrialisation, by putting city living through affordable housing at the heart of regeneration.This work is being delivered by Transforming Communities Glasgow, a partnership between the Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council and the Glasgow Housing Association. ‘The regeneration areas are about creating new communities with local people involved from the outset,’ says Councillor Kenny McLean, convenor (neighbourhoods, housing and public realm), Glasgow City Council. ‘Transform Communities Glasgow is aiming to build genuine, mixed communities that are tenure blind. Local people are involved in the design of the neighbourhoods, forming the shape of their communities with local facilities, including local shops, schools, and leisure and medical facilities.’ The city’s experiments in modernist city planning failed.
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