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Tollcross Park

PostPosted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 12:03 pm
by stranger
Have they pulled down the Winter Gardens in tollcross park yet
it has been abandoned for years
absolute disgrace if you ask me

PostPosted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:30 pm
by Apollo
Tollcross park all shiny and new after being restored over the past few years, and it has a snazzy visitor centre and cafe type thingy glued an the back too.

There's a Winter Gardens gallery here: http://www.tollcrosspark.com/

Seems pretty popular with the locals as well, almost bursting at the seams a few weeks ago when I walked through the park.

So, the news isn't always bad.

The park has benefited from the addition of a leisure centre in its grounds (Pool, health suite, sauna, steam rooms, fitness suite and gym. Range of classses, including step and aerobics. Sports halls offer five-a-side football, basketball, netball and badminton), and has generally been tarted and tidied all over, and for once it shows.

PostPosted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 9:14 pm
by escotregen
On the Tollcross Glass house I don't know that I would agree that the park 'benefited' from a new liesure centre. I do agree it certainly does 'show'... a huge chunk of the park was given over to stone, concrete, glass and traffic pollution. Seems pretty obscene to sacrifice a green and semi natural amenity and put in a liesure centre when the Tollcross area in particular abounds in derelict brownfield sites. Certainly it was true that the local community were almost wholly ignored in the parachuting in of this 'improvement' that seems to be serving a huge amount of car-bourne traffic from outwith the local community at the expense of the local community (that has one of the lowest car-owning levels in the UK).

PostPosted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:59 am
by stranger
thanks for the link apollo what a difference a few years can make

last time i saw it there was no glass and a six foot security fence around it
i was sure it was on its last legs
glad to see people coming back to the park too it was really
popular when i was a kid but became a bit of a ned reserve in the 80s

PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 11:57 am
by Apollo
Do I detect a personal issue with Tollcross Park?

I'll never cross the threshold of the Leisure Centre as there's nothing happens in there that I'd class as leisure, more like hard effort, however:

Is it really all that big? It's reasonably screened and doesn't remove a valuable corner, being at a main drag into Glagow, Tollcross Road, and fed by Braidfauld Street from London Road.

All leisure centres have car parks, locals don't need to drive, and a walk round the streets of Tollcross would make you question the ownership stats. They're as nose to tail with parked cars as anywhere else.

When I'm there, all I see is happy families, kids, adults and prams, saved and restored buildings, all in a park I think was once due to be closed and left to rot, as were many others that I'm pleased to see are still with us

Apologies if the question's a bit nosey, please just ignore it if it is.

PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:02 pm
by stranger
i cant really comment on the leisure centre as it was built after
i left but if it had some effect on the regeneration of a park that was
being left to rot then it cant all be bad

slightly off topic have they demolished shettleston baths now that the leisure centre has been built

PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 8:24 pm
by crusty_bint
The old baths and steamie is still there, although boarded up and sealed as tight as a gnats ch*ff,

Crusty

PostPosted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 10:16 pm
by escotregen
Well, what are faced with here is that something 'that must be good' i.e. a big bright regeneration project, and people asked how they can carp and complain about such a wonderful thing. So long as the line "but surely its better than what was there before" is accepted, then so long we will have endless big projects that cost a lot in money and environment and fail to provide sustainable and significant regeneration for the neighbourhoods in which they are situated. I repeat some points I made before;
For example the local community were not extended any meaningful participation in the decision-making,
For example the Council that allowed the park to long deteriorate then expects plaudits for 'having' to obliterate a large chunk of it and calls it it regeneration (this was an important part of the park which helped insulate the core from the surrounding arterial road routes that have now been brought further into the park proper)
For example the attraction of further large volumes of polluting car borne traffic into a poor neighbourhood (and it is one of the lowest car-ownership areas in the UK - heaven help us if we take the numbers of cars parked in a neighbourhood as the measure of ownership).
Moreover, all of this parachuted-in, big-time prestige project does virtually nothing for real regeneration of the neighbourhood. A wee insight into this is the continuing endemic gang warfare and territoriality issues means that many youngsters from adjacent communities cannot use the facility - not a problem of course for kids being brought in by car from further away and more affluent neighbourhoods. Another wee insight - how many officials and guests at the regular high status events held in the centre dally a little while afterwards and avail themselves of the local Tollcross social and cultural 'facilities'... there are some wonderful old gentlemens pubs for example to delight oneself in... Aye that'll be right Jimmy!
However, apart from being too tired to continue having to restate this argument, I would not want to temp the thread off-topic, so I'll end my contribution to the thread here. :)

PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 1:04 am
by Apollo
Poor Springburn thread, maybe a nice Mod'll split it.

Any script on the building below from the park?

If really tiny memory serves me well, I was carted (willingly) around this place under the title of Tollcross Park Museum, and presented with one of Glasgow's well ken't standards in the "Who Killed Cock Robin" display. Wandering back there a couple of years ago, the door was secured with a controlled entrance system, but no signs to indicate what it was or who was in it. Bravery pill and a peer through the curtains hinted at the appearance of an old folks home, but where's Cock Robin, and did some developer steal the building?

Image

PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 1:40 am
by crusty_bint
Theres a pic of the Queen admiring the cock ...robin display in Tollcross museum, taken at sometime in the 1950's. When the museum closed most of the contents went to Kelvingrove, including the cock robin dispaly, so id imagine its in Nitshill at present. Oh, and the Dunlop mansion was snapped up by the Church of Scotland who, rather crudely, converted it to a residential care home. Rumour has it its a cover for a secret organ bank run by the church, sounds a bit much like a conspiracy theory to me 8O

Crusty

PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 12:29 pm
by Apollo
Well, I suppose it's better than having it demolished.

Interesting reference, and I thought the unmarked white van at the rear with insulated containers was actually delivering.