A Glasgow City Council committee today (6 February) approved almost £70,000 ENV2 funding towards the creation of a children’s play area and a woodlands community space in the North Toryglen Transformational Regeneration Area (TRA).
Both the play area and the community space will be built on council-owned land. ENV2 funding for these comes from contributions from the building of the Crudens’ housebuilding.
North Toryglen is one of Glasgow’s eight Transformational Regeneration Areas, with extensive demolition of unpopular housing stocks clearing land for new housing, with 100 socially-rented homes for GHA tenants displaced by demolition and 104 homes for sale (by Crudens) built. Another 127 for sale are either on site or planned. The area also now has a 120-bedspace elderly care home.
Although North Toryglen has benefited from these developments, the surrounding quality of open space and standards of connectivity with other areas need to be improved. To address this, a greenspace group was set up though the local delivery group. The main partners of this sub-group – Glasgow City Council, Clyde Gateway and Urban Roots – have now drawn up proposals for improvements, following public consultation events.
These proposals include the delivery of new public space, parkland and a network of sustainable transport routes with the intention the area will become more permeable, raising the profile for local residents, visitors and those using the through routes on bikes and other non-motorised transport. The creation of the children’s play area and the woodlands community space will be important part of these proposals to come to, and will be delivered by the summer of 2022.
Both projects sit within the wider greenspace strategy for the area, which aims to attract a capital budget of almost £3.35million. The greenspace group is attracting funding from Glasgow City Council; the Scottish Government’s Vacant & Derelict Land Fund; Scottish Natural Heritage’s Green Infrastructure Fund, SUSTRANS and Transforming Communities: Glasgow.
Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, said: “While the standard of housing in North Toryglen has been transformed in recent years, there have been issues with the quality of open space, accessibility and connections to surroundings areas. The new children’s play area and woodlands community space will be the first of a series of projects to tackles these issues, allowing the community the chance to fully enjoy their local spaces.”
