BACKGROUND

THEY were seen as a quick, cheap and futuristic solution to Scotland’s housing shortage.

High-rise residential tower blocks sprang up across cities and larger towns throughout the ’60s and ’70s, changing the face of many of those conurbations and in the case of Glasgow, creating Britain’s first high-rise city.

Scotland built more tower blocks, around 1000, than anywhere in the UK, with Glasgow leading the way.

But just as Glasgow’s tenements became synonymous with slums and poverty, high-rise flats threw up as many problems as they solved.

Many were shoddily built, with residents finding them cold and damp, older people and young famiies felt stranded on the higher floors and some towers were far from local services.

By the ’80s many of the country’s high-rise estates were associated – often ufairly – with crime and social ills.

Councils faced two options – refurbish or demolish them.

Some were knocked down – most notably Glasgow’s notorious Red Road Flats, and the Bluevale and Whitevale Towers, Scotland’s tallest buildings.

Other blocks underwent extensive refurbishment, in a bid to improve their appearance with insulation and external cladding added.

It is this cladding and other external additions which are feared to have allowed a series of fires – including last week’s blaze at London’s Grenfell Tower – to spread so rapidly.