Student accommodation plan would be blight on Glasgow’s heritage

DOES Glasgow really propose to place a completely alien student housing development on Sauchiehall Street at the corner of Dalhousie Street, hiding for ever, the Art School’s distinctive east gable and south elevation?

This will ruin Glasgow’s hopes to make the Art School a World Heritage Site and place a large-scale anomaly in the classic Victorian linear form of our famous Sauchiehall Street. The character of Glasgow Central Conservation Area, especially Garnethill, will likewise be diminished by these proposals.

The opportunities and wider benefits of development here, regenerating an important Glasgow thoroughfare, may be real – but this comes at too high a cost: major negative impact on one of the city’s key assets, the world famous Charles Rennie Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art. The intense international interest following the fire in 2014 is testimony to the GSA building’s exceptional cultural, heritage, tourism and wider economic value.

Four of Glasgow’s major amenity societies discussed this matter at a recent Glasgow Civic Forum meeting, and all submitted strong objections to the planning application. We call on Glasgow City Council to refuse this blatantly market-driven development, and on the developer to think again, make a fresh start, and work on a creative relationship worthy of the Art School as a neighbouring asset. We will all be happy to assist. Ann Laird, Chairman, Glasgow Civic Forum and Friends of Glasgow West, and Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, New Glasgow Society, Pollokshields Heritage, c/o 16 Dudley Drive, Hyndland, Glasgow.