A correspondent writes

From one of our regular correspondents:

To the Scottish Government

Owing to the current addiction to neoliberalism on the part of Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government, a number of "pie-in-the-sky" schemes have been promoted by both entities.

"No one" could see the financial collapse of 2008 coming (this according to the very people who didn't see it coming!), just as "no one" could see that invading Iraq would be a disaster (except, of course, for the millions who marched against the war before it started).

Obviously in both cases, the experts were 100% wrong. For any of us to move forward in a productive way, we need to admit when we're wrong and learn from it.

We are now, due to the reckless actions of the former GCC leader Steven Purcell, lumbered with the costly mega-event known as the Commonwealth Games. One of the supposed benefits (which will not trickle down to the city's residents) is tourism. I think it's worthwhile to look at the report of Ronald Jackson, regarding a CPO obtained by GCC against several local businesses. In the report, Mr Jackson states:

"On balance, given the commitment and involvement of Jumeirah, the detailed appraisal
work on both cost and value that has been carried out and the evidence set out in
paragraphs 10-14 above, I consider that it is much more likely than not that the necessary
funding would be available for the scheme. Having regard to my findings in this and the
three preceding paragraphs I attach little weight to the objectors’ development appraisal
(RBH 7), prefer the evidence of the council and its witnesses and conclude that the weight
of evidence shows that the scheme would be financially viable."

Now consider today's news:

"Jumeirah Group’s plans to operate a luxury hotel in Scotland have been thrown into disarray after the developer behind the $200m project went into administration."

Perhaps only in Glasgow could the city unveil an "International Financial Services District" after the collapse of international finance, but then again nonsensical development plans have scarred cities across the UK and USA.

What about actually listening to the people who live in the city?

Sincerely

XXXXXXXXXXX

Commonwealth Games Chief quits over "gift"

From the Daily Record:

Glasgow Commonwealth Games chief quits over gift

Jun 28 2011 Chris Musson

Gift 'mistake' costs Scott his 2014 post

POLICE are to question Commonwealth Games chiefs after the head of Glasgow 2014 quit for failing to declare a gift.

John Scott admitted he had accepted an "offer" from a "potential supplier" and failed to declare it.

Games organisers Glasgow 2014 Ltd announced the 59-year-old had resigned from his £179,000-a-year post.

But they refused to reveal details of what he took.

They would only say it was an "error of judgment" and a "mistake".

Last night, Strathclyde Police said no investigation has been launched into the scandal.

However, it is understood police will speak to the board, possibly today, and the situation could change.

A senior insider at the force said: "We will be asking questions about this."

Lord Robert Smith, chairman of the Glasgow 2014 board, announced Scott's resignation after an emergency meeting yesterday.

Insiders say the details of the gift or gratuity were not disclosed to the meeting and are only known to Lord Smith and a close circle.

In a statement, Lord Smith said: "John Scott has made an important contribution to the plannin g of what we believe will be an outstanding Games.

"The board has accepted his resignation for an error of judgment he made in accepting, and not declaring, an offer from one of Glasgow 2014's potential suppliers, in breach of the organising committee's strict gifts and gratuities policy.

"I know he deeply regrets this mistake and this was a job that he loved. It is a measure of the man that he has put the values and reputation of the organising committee ahead of his own at this time.

"John was largely responsible for setting the committee's high standards of governance and he felt he could not continue in his role as chief executive under the circumstances."

Commonwealth Games minister Shona Robison said: "John Scott has made a valuable contribution as chief executive of the organising committee.

"However, the reputation and integrity of our Games is paramount and, to that end, I believe Mr Scott has done the right and principled thing in stepping down."

Gordon Arthur, a board member and the spokesman for Glasgow 2014, said Scott informed Lord Smith of the offer late last week.

The Scottish government and Glasgow City Council - the two bodies funding the Games - were told of Scott's resignation yesterday afternoon.

David Grevemberg, the current chief operating officer, has taken over as acting chief executive.

Scott took up his post in 2008. Before that, he was a key adviser on the London 2012 Olympic bid.

Evicted gran goes back to see flat pulled down

Evicted gran returns to see her flat being pulled down

• 

• Margaret Jaconelli returns to her old home with grandson Luca

Paul Drury

5 May 2011

Commonwealth Games site battler Margaret Jaconelli returned to her old home in Glasgow’s East End … to watch it being demolished.

Glasgow City Council carried out its promise to pull down the sandstone built flats in Ardenlea Street, Dalmarnock to make way for a service area for the 2014 sporting extravaganza.

There was no sign of the heavy security or the 100 police officers who helped evict Margaret and her family 42 days ago following a legal battle in which the family refused to move from the site which will be next to the Athletes’ Village.

Margaret, husband Jack and members of her family turned up for a final farewell to their home of 35 years.

Margaret, 53 said: “I am homeless and penniless thanks to a hard-hearted local authority.

“They said they would paying me £90,000 for my property though I’ve not had so much as a letter from the council.

“All I’m walking away with today is memories.”

She criticised Glasgow City Council for refusing to accept a mediation proposal put forward by the SNP government in Holyrood.

The Jaconellis and their four sons, daughter-in-law and grandson Luca, eight months, spent around 30 minutes in the street during a workman’s tea-break.

Then, after one final look back, they walked out of Ardenlea Street for the last time.

The doomed sandstone tenement still had the message written on the front: ‘Davina – We’re No Being Evicted’. It was the only remaining sign of the family’s sit-in campaign.

The wrecking crew then moved in to turn the building into rubble.

It was the only home Margaret’s son Aaron, 17, had known and he said: “I can remember happy days here, playing in the street.

“Now it’s all gone, I’m gutted.”

A council spokesman said: “The demolition will allow construction work on the Athletes’ Village to begin.” [Well, that's alright then. There will be absolutely NO benefit for the residents of Glasgow, but hey - someone will be making some quick money...]

Save the Accord Centre

So two weeks ago the Accord Centre were sent a letter from the Council saying they would have to vacate the premises yesterday. But the place the Council was going to move everyone is having "financial difficulties". Anyways, the Centre is fighting back - follow their news on Facebook.

Games Monitor: The eviction

Photos and more about the Jaconelli eviction: http://gamesmonitor2014.wordpress.com/

Disgrace

100 cops evict gran from flat for Commonweath Games

by Steve White, Daily Mirror 25/03/2011

MORE than 100 police officers yesterday helped evict a defiant gran from her flat, which is to be flattened for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

In a 5am raid, Margaret Jaconelli, 52, was shifted by force from her Glasgow home of 35 years after an eight-year legal battle.

Her supporters were stunned by the numbers used by Strathclyde Police, but the force said the eviction was “resourced appropriately”.

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/03/25/100-cops-evict-gran-from-flat-for-commonweath-games-115875-23014135/#ixzz1HcTtF2Zj

The Herald notices Glasgow planning makes no sense

It took them awhile, but still the elite organ the Glasgow Herald finally notices that the City Council's destruction of the city makes no sense. Still, they oddly recommend that Margaret Jaconelli "take the money and move on". However, they do - finally, belatedly - recognise that knocking down communities does not engender communities. Better late than never?

The real legacy of the 2014 Games

The transformation of the east end of Glasgow into an international sports hub for the Commonwealth Games in 2014 is but the latest episode in the decades-long saga of regeneration of the area.

Successive city councillors, planners, economists and architects have wrestled with Quixotic plans to once again make the post-industrial city the Dear Green Place.

There have been many mistakes along the way, mostly due to vaulting municipal ambition. Glasgow undertook the largest, post-war, comprehensive redevelopment of any city in the UK and thousands of tenements were demolished. Famously, a delegation of councillors to Marseille in 1947 were so bedazzled by Le Corbusier’s tower blocks that they returned with visions of replacing dark slums with sun-filled, high-rise towers. The reality in rainy west of Scotland was very different. The most notorious blocks in Hutchesontown, where tenants used to conduct journalists on tours of the mould growing on the walls, have now been demolished.

With the award of the title of European City of Architecture in 1999 came a new sense of custodianship, not just of the ornate city centre buildings but of the streets of handsomely proportioned sandstone tenements which have been integral to the physical and social structure of the city since Victorian times.

Yet the recognition that too many have been lost that might have been refurbished has not spared the traditional streets around Parkhead from the developers’ bulldozers. The tried and tested model of three floors of tenement flats above ground floor shops provides the sense of community all planners seek. In this case, however, that has been trumped by the greater good of the new community due to emerge as the legacy of the Commonwealth Games.

Which is where Jack and Margaret Jaconelli come into the picture. Their tenement flat is now the only one still occupied in Ardenlea Street, the whole of which is to be demolished to provide a construction yard for the athletes’ village for the Games. The Jaconellis’ flat is the subject of a compulsory purchase order by the council.

Naturally, they don’t want to leave the home they have lived in for 34 years and now own outright. Mrs Jaconelli’s feisty resistance must endear her to all of us whose natural instinct is to take the side of the underdog in the face of corporate clout or against a public body failing in its duty to act fairly and reasonably. Having lost an appeal against a sheriff’s ruling that the council can evict her, she and her family have barricaded themselves in.

Unlike householders on land adjoining Donald Trump’s golf course in Aberdeenshire, who have gained assurances the tycoon will not ask the council to take out compulsory purchase orders on their homes, the stand-off between the couple and the council is not as simple a David and Goliath battle as it first appears. Mrs Jaconelli turned down the offer of £30,000 for her flat because it would not be sufficient to buy another. That is true but neighbours who took the offer when it was first made gained a sizeable deposit which enabled them to buy a better house.

The council has since increased its offer to £90,000 but Mrs Jaconelli was not satisfied because it compared poorly with compensation paid to property developers. The couple spend £5000 a year on heating their two-bedroom flat as a result of the condition of the building. A letter submitted to the court from their doctor says both are suffering from stress due to their housing circumstances and a move would improve their health. It surely is now in her interest to take the money on offer and move. [???!!!]

Nevertheless, the council must be held to account. The success or failure of the Games must be judged as much on the legacy as on the sporting festival, attendance figures and income generated. Improved health and wealth for ithe community are part of the deal.

It is not only the sanctity of people’s homes that must be respected. Instead of demolishing the stones and structure of the community, a new sense of purpose and pride in the east end of Glasgow would be better achieved by building on them.