Glasgow 1960s and what was called ‘redevelopment’

[escotregen]

Bingo Bango I hope you can do me the credit of at least having some common sense... especially when you read the contents of my earlier comments. As an experienced property guy I have of course researched the product and specification and the installation company I have opted for.

Anything you do to any property, system or scheme will cause damage and cost if it is "Poorly executed, inappropriate..." (e.g. replacement windows). As with anything else there is a lot of uninformed or wrongly informed versions and theories about cavity fill based on the failures and the cowboy operators.

On solar panels, I too anticipate future problems (some in addition to the ones you mention) with some of the present day systems. There are, however, some excellent and well proven systems - developed in countries other than the UK I understand. The problems you cite are less to do with solar panels as such - they are to do with the poorly regulated marketing (or rather salesmanship) techniques and a weak or inappropriate planning and building control system across the UK. As ever, in the UK we have Conservative (and increasingly Labour) Governments that seem endlessly trusting of the private sector and 'the market' to 'do the right thing' if left as much discretion as possible when when it comes to the new and the innovatory.

[Bingo Bango]

Bingo Bango I hope you can do me the credit of at least having some common sense... especially when you read the contents of my earlier comments. As an experienced property guy I have of course researched the product and specification and the installation company I have opted for.

Anything you do to any property, system or scheme will cause damage and cost if it is "Poorly executed, inappropriate..." (e.g. replacement windows). As with anything else there is a lot of uninformed or wrongly informed versions and theories about cavity fill based on the failures and the cowboy operators.

On solar panels, I too anticipate future problems (some in addition to the ones you mention) with some of the present day systems. There are, however, some excellent and well proven systems - developed in countries other than the UK I understand. The problems you cite are less to do with solar panels as such - they are to do with the poorly regulated marketing (or rather salesmanship) techniques and a weak or inappropriate planning and building control system across the UK. As ever, in the UK we have Conservative (and increasingly Labour) Governments that seem endlessly trusting of the private sector and 'the market' to 'do the right thing' if left as much discretion as possible when when it comes to the new and the innovatory.

I am crediting no one with common sense, and don't even know you to know otherwise! You will note that I did not refer specifically to your scheme or anyone else's. Generally, these schemes will be run for profit somewhere along the line and done to the lowest quality standard, as quickly as possible, installed where suitable or not and with little to no accountability after the fact.

Whether it's cavity insulation, solar panels, new windows (and i am interested in specifically what you think the issues are here) heat pumps etc - there is a lot of messing around going on with installations. Future problems are guaranteed.

On the solar panel issue - again, I am not specifically saying its the panels that are the problems, but you can't look at something like this in isolation of the panel or the fitting - it's all one thing.

[escotregen]

Bingo Bango I would have thought the possession of commons sense on my part was clear from the earlier postings... however.

The tenor of your original comments were generalised and broadly condemning. Do you have any actual evidence for the statement (especially on 'Generally'), "Generally, these schemes will be run for profit somewhere along the line and done to the lowest quality standard, as quickly as possible, installed where suitable or not and with little to no accountability after the fact."?

Again that is all pretty generalised and condemning.

Relevance of this to the topic is that much of the damage wrought by Glasgow's so-called development was driven by people who assumed they knew best - usually in the absence of any objective evidence.

[Bingo Bango]

I am not attacking you or criticising you or anything you do. I don't believe I was saying anything directly about you lacking common sense, simply that I dont know you to do otherwise.

I am broadly condemning of the current trend for fashionable retrofit of stock housing through the addition of solar panels, cavity/loft insulation etc etc yes. This is from various factors, from the insistent telephone sales ploys companies use on the elderly/those not in the know, from the poor quality lowest bid type installers, to the fundamental fact that in many instances there is little to no benefit from retro-installing cavity wall insulation and that the process actually has the potential to damage the fabric of the building and produce tangible negatives to occupants.

I agree with you completely that much damage was done to Glasgow supposedly by those who knew best. This I believe is still the case.

[escotregen]

Bingo Bango, I appreciate your perseverance at clarifying and I don't want to look like going off in a huff in the corner . I suppose it can only be a promising thing for the future of Glasgow if there folks like us, and the others in this discussion, who clearly feel so strongly for the city.

We can of course have different perspectives - I see retrofit as just about one of the most important issues we must deal with in the interests of future economic and environmental sustainability. That has to be especially true in a city like Glasgow with so much traditional stock (and so many people experiencing poverty). It's another area that the UK is falling way behind on (incidentally one of the emerging world leaders in rehab is seemingly China! Given it's atrocious industrialisation problems that may not be so surprising).

I suspect that where you and I would agree is the need for (and the absence of) strong regulatory control over the entire energy efficiency/renewables sector. That, IMO is sadly something we are unlikely to get in the UK, given the base level of most of our political classes who are the ones that must show the leadership on this.

[Bingo Bango]

I think we are arguing the same points more or less from different standpoints.

I agree entirely with you that regulation is what is called for. Regulation both of the technological schemes and also the installation and maintenance etc.

I also agree entirely with you that retrofit is an enormously important issue and especially in Glasgow. Private houses are one thing with their own issues that you would hope could be controlled through planning legislation (this has its own difficulties of course) but what really alarms me is the situation with tenement stock.

In my personal experience, I believe there are massive issues piling up on the horizon with non-regulated maintenance, poorly executed planned maintenance, lack of maintenance. These issues range from the aesthetic through the environmental to life safety. Much blame can be laid at factors feet, but legislation and general attitudes to our buildings needs to get better.

This is just a quick response, poorly written, but it's a very important issue and one that frustrates and intrigues in equal measure. Thanks for stimulating the debate and your robust posts.

[SomeRandomBint]

SomeRandon you’ve perhaps got the thing about space and the environment and tenements the wrong way around?...

Sorry, I think you misunderstood. I was responding to why there are so few tenements. From a developer's point of view, the high ceilings ARE wasted space - if you took a couple of feet off the top of each of the houses in my block, you could get another flat out of them. A fairly interesting comparison is looking at the Almandine apartments on Hill Street, or the older red brick flats on Buccleuch Street/West Graham Street. The ceiling height is TINY because they're cramming as many flat in as possible. Cos more flats mean mo' money.

There's no way on God's Green earth I'd swap my sandstone building for one of those though. I love having all this space. I can even put up with the draughty windaes as I inherited my Granny's velvet lined 180 drop curtains. There are still some families living in the tenements round here. Woman upstairs to me still has her recess bed in the kitchen whilst her two kids share the bedroom. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I'd happily stay here with kids, even though it would be tight. Most one beds round here (Garnethill) are being let as 2 beds, with the kitchen being a sitting room, though.

[escotregen]

Aha Random; I'd certainly agree that from the developer's perspective - which is to cut spec, therefore costs, therefore price to the minimum. the term 'tenement' has not really been applied to new build house developments since (say) the 60s - it was superceded by the terminology of flatted blocks, apartment blocks, walk-up flats etc.

Things went drastically wrong when what was called the Parker Morris standards were abandoned (a trend pushed by the UK Conservative Govt of course in the 80s); roughly at the start of the of when the UK home-ownership mania really got going in the late 80s.

There are glimmerings of hope that lessons have been learned. In London I believe that the planning design guidance now recommends standards that actually slightly improve on the old Parker Morris ones. The attempts to encourage that direction were being championed by the Government quango 'English Heritage' ... which, of course, has now been demolished... by, of course, another UK Conservative Government (although we are supposed to call it a Coalition Government ). Thankfully the Scottish Housing Standards are pushing Scottish construction in the right direction.

[The Egg Man]

.................
Sorry, I think you misunderstood. I was responding to why there are so few tenements. From a developer's point of view, the high ceilings ARE wasted space - if you took a couple of feet off the top of each of the houses in my block, you could get another flat out of them. A fairly interesting comparison is looking at the Almandine apartments on Hill Street, or the older red brick flats on Buccleuch Street/West Graham Street. The ceiling height is TINY because they're cramming as many flat in as possible. Cos more flats mean mo' money.

............................

In certain parts of Glasgow, Garnethill included, part of the reason for going up the way is that we're running out of ground space in places people want to live.

It ain't all just about mo' money. When you get to a certain number of floors (I believe) you have to start installing lifts and that can eat into any extra profit an extra floor might have generated.

[SomeRandomBint]

Escotregen -

I can certainly attest that the heating in my sandstone tenement house is far superior to the 80s Laing build place we came from - it's a lot more ecologically sound for us in a number of ways. Even down to the fact we can get rid of the car because we're finally near decent public transport links!

EggMan -

Fair observation. Although as the Almandine flats show, apparently, no one wants to live there either! There's only one block build and that's not fully let out yet! And a fair percentage of the completed block, I believe, is social housing (which was one of the conditions of them getting planning permission in the first place).

[escotregen]

Eggman; on the life-above-certain-floors; again a reason why the tenement is a good urban compromise. The maximum-height tenements (and the relative unpopularity of the top level flats) had really already demonstrated the limits, and informed building regs, by the time lifts in residential properties became more widespread.

I still see money as being the imperative for private sector developers. Hence, to extract maximum crude returns from flats they most typically do low spec and maximum density, or make the leap up (no pun intended) to high-rise to ensure scale still give you the return. There are, of course, plenty of modern medium-rise developments happening. The returns in these medium-rise developments are usually aimed for by building on a better spec in 'more desirable' locations so that the selling price can be maximised to ensure returns.

My prediction for the future is that many of the developments in central Glasgow, especially riverside and adjacent will not prosper well - because IMO the original developers (with some leniency on the part of City Planning it can be argued) have not made a good compromise between standard of specification, height density and amenity. My information was that early on in some of these developments the original developers 'sold-on' the portfolio as sales were not what was anticipated. Yet again I would refer back to the history of tenements when all these lessons were being learned the hard way - lessons still there in the history if only today's decision-makers would observe them.

[Bingo Bango]

As an architect, I would love to be given the chance to design residential based on the principles that tenements gave us.

High ceilings, large rooms, big windows, robust materials. Beautiful decoration of the fabric. List goes on.

Of course there are plenty elements that could be improved upon for the 21st/22nd century - better energy performance, better access for all. The recognition of the need for adequate car parking or links to transport.

There are just so many good things that a modern tenement could provide. Even down to there being a decent sized shop at the corner. You could have live/work tenement models where the ground floor is small offices for example, or small workshops or community functions.

As a model of building though - fantastic aspiration. It makes it all the more disappointing when a new scheme comes along beside an existing tenement. With all our technological and societal advantages we then put up a stunted little box with white plastic windows, with a beautiful bit of 'matching' by having cheap red brick when next to red sandstone, or cheap buff brick when next to tan. Slap some nice chrome taps on the tiny en-suite bog and you have yourself a 'luxury' flat.

Not only do we need redevelopment of the actual buildings, we need it in our attitudes and aspirations, and expectations also, or many mistakes are doomed to be repeated.

[escotregen]

Bingo Banga, obviously heartfelt as well as commendable sentiments there.

I appreciate that there are some sterling examples of innovation and experiment going on just now in design/architecture/urbanism - and a hats-off from me to the likes of Architect & Design Scotland and especially BRE efforts out at Ravenscraig. But it just seems that the 'tenement' - or even just 'flatted developments'- don't seem to merit the same care and attention in all of that. I'm maybe being unfair there, but it's my impression.

In the spirit of what you argue for, I'dd add that we do well to revisit with those involved at the time just what were the thinking, the approaches the methodologies used that led to the 70s onwards great wave of the rescue and rehabilitation of Glasgow tenements. The 'how it was eventually done' is probably pretty well known - the more instructive stuff to revisit would be how did we bring that about, so that a whole rubbished and declared obsolete stock was saved and massively re-invested in? Then we could maybe re-apply that to the present day circumstances.

[Bingo Bango]

Agree entirely, and think this is what I was trying to say about changing attitudes as well as buildings. In saying that, its important to recognise when a building is actually beyond saving or not in the best interests of anyone to save.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no social driver at the current time for real quality housing. I mean real quality in terms of what the tenement gave of space, light, fabric. I would like to say that it is still evident in social landlords and, to a certain extent can be - developments out Graham Square way and the like are good examples standing on their own. When we get up close with another tenement block, where the existing urban fabric and scale are appropriate, there is nothing more disheartening than to see the squat brick blocks I talked about above popping up.

There is a good (bad) example of this in Cathcart/Battlefield/Mount Florida at the moment, near to the Clockwork pub. A stubby little thing, stuck on the end of the anonymous, but well mannered very long block on Holmlea Road. Hiding behind this shambles is a bunch of little noddy houses arranged around an access road with some grass patches and parking spaces. All finished off with B+Q uPVC windows.

I recall, probably erroneously, riding in my parents car as a wee guy going to visit relatives in Muirend, going past this long block when it was being done up with all the plant pots leading down to skips. Mid-late 80's perhaps. It was an enduring memory anyway, but don't think it is one to be repeated even in my lifetime. When it comes to refurbishing this new block in time, I can't see where the room for maneuver lies.

When I win the Euro Millions I will be doing all the usual - nice car, couple of wives etc. But as an extra, I will be buying some land and building a full modern tenement block. It will need to be a rollover though as no doubt hefty bribes to planning will be required so they allow me to dare go as tall as an existing building. Watch this space.

[The Egg Man]

................

Unfortunately, there appears to be no social driver at the current time for real quality housing. I mean real quality in terms of what the tenement gave of space, light, fabric. I would like to say that it is still evident in social landlords and, to a certain extent can be - developments out Graham Square way and the like are good examples standing on their own. When we get up close with another tenement block, where the existing urban fabric and scale are appropriate, there is nothing more disheartening than to see the squat brick blocks I talked about above popping up.

........................

The real challenge at the moment is the shortfall in Housing Action Grant (HAG) money. It makes it almost impossible to finance social housing developments which meet the basics of the Scottish Social Housing Charter, far less fund nice stuff like design, renewable energy provision, buy land in 'nice' bits of the city and so on.

In return for what limited HAG that IS available, local authorities are demanding increasing influence/ control over the tenure mix and facilities to be provided - social v shared ownership +/- properties suitable for disabled folk or specifically set aside for those previously in homeless accommodation (if that's not a contradiction) like the Salvation Army place near the High Court we spoke about elsewhere on HG.