Last Friday Glasgow City Council passed in principle the granting of a 99-year lease to the G1 Group of the old station in the Botanic Gardens, for the purpose of developing a nightclub and conference centre and possibly also a miniature railway and pavilion. This appalling decision must be called in by the scrutiny committee and the council must think again.
The Botanic Gardens is not an ordinary park, it is a scientific garden and is of national and international importance. Such use would be wholly unacceptable.
Private commercial development in public parks is, in any case, quite wrong. It is now, unfortunately, council policy to allow "development" in parks, but this has not been defined and it definitely should not include bars and facilities for the night-time economy. The parks belong to the people of Glasgow and they are not the council's to give or sell. The council has no right to alienate any part of a public park from the common good.
The Botanic Gardens is already very popular and very busy and is enjoyed by thousands of people.
The infrastructure of the West End will not bear a development of this kind. There is no parking provision. There is no safe access for deliveries and servicing vehicles to this congested site without making an already busy junction absolutely impossible, or driving through the park itself. Noise, air pollution and traffic congestion are serious problems in Byres Road. Already this end of the road is a nightmare for residents in the evenings as fleets of taxis relay people to the huge drinking establishments the council and the licensing board have allowed to develop.
I am appalled at the lack of consultation on this decision. The community councils by statute have to be consulted yet they learned about it only at the last minute, privately. The council was obviously hoping quietly to sign over the lease without giving the public the chance to make representations. Such high-handed disregard gets Glasgow City Council a poor reputation.
In the past the council's planning committee refused an application for a much smaller development in the Botanic Gardens on the grounds of safety and amenity. How was this much more extensive development considered?
This move goes against the council's own policy to preserve the solum of disused railways in case a line should ever be opened up again. In view of the traffic problems in this area, it would seem short-sighted to put such amenities beyond use in the future.
For the sake of the reputation of the Botanic Gardens and the integrity of our parks, this appalling idea must be stopped in its tracks.
Susan Milligan, 39 Cecil Street, Hillhead, Glasgow.
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