Bid to redevelop old festival site

MAJOR plans to redevelop part of the site which hosted Glasgow Garden Festival more than 30 years ago have been submitted to the city council.

Surplus Property Solutions has launched a bid for planning permission in principle to allow for a development including business, residential, retail, cafe and restaurant uses on the land at Pacific Quay.

Scottish Government quango Scottish Enterprise, which currently owns the site, has given its “full support” to the application “which would complete the redevelopment of this part of Pacific Quay”.

A planning report states: “The site has been vacant for a number of years despite marketing for business uses.

“The proposed development will deliver new office floorspace as well as much-needed ancillary services such as retail and a cafe/restaurant to serve the wider businesses, hotels and population.

“The addition of this mixed-use development hub, with residential apartments, will generate activity outwith office hours, creating vibrancy and improving perceived safety concerns at Pacific Quay.”

If approved, the development, to the west of 7 Festival Gate, would also include car parking.

The land forms part of the Scottish Enterprise Masterplan, which “seeks to create a vibrant neighbourhood”.

The city’s garden festival, one of five held across the UK in the 1980s and early 1990s, ran for five months – it ran from April to September in 1988, and attracted more than four million visitors.

After the festival, the land was meant to be developed for housing, but most of it has been derelict.

Some areas were redeveloped when the BBC and STV moved into a media campus at Pacific Quay, joining Glasgow Science Centre, which opened in 2001.

Last year, plans for more than 200 homes on land near to Festival Park were given the go-ahead.

Another planning application, submitted in 2018, could see cafes, restaurants, homes and offices overlooking the Canting Basin.

It would also include a £10 million urban whisky distillery, bottling plant and visitor centre. growing residential