Category: Strathbungo Society (Page 1 of 18)

Summer 2024 Newsletter is here

The latest newsletter has arrived, just in time for Bungo in the Back Lanes! If it hasn’t made it through your door already, you can

Read it now!

As well as Back Lanes news, there’s an update on parking restrictions, Queens Park Arena, and local news.

Thanks again to Kem Gammie for editing. If you want to write something for the newsletter, or even better if you fancy helping edit it or laying it out, please get in touch.

You can also find the newsletter, and old ones back to the 1990s, at the BygoneBungo Newsletter Archive.

Spring 2024 Newsletter is here

The latest newsletter has arrived. If it hasn’t made it through your door already, you can

Read it now!

It’s a mixture of Window Wanderland, the history of Moray Park (where?), bins, Southside U3A and Bungo at the Bells.

Thanks to Kem Gammie for getting this one out. If you want to write something for the newsletter, or even better if you fancy helping edit it or laying it out, please get in touch.

You can also find the newsletter, and old ones back to the 1990s, at the BygoneBungo Newsletter Archive.

Strathbungo Society AGM 2023

The AGM of the Strathbungo Society is set for tomorrow, Tuesday 7th November. The event is again in Queens Park Church of Scotland over on Queens Drive, and will begin at 7.30pm. Doors will be open from 7.15pm, with tea and coffee available beforehand and wine afterwards.  Do come and meet fellow residents of the area.

The principal business of the evening will be the Society’s report and accounts for the year. We also welcome Iain Morrison from consultants Ironside Farrar to talk about the southside consultation on improvements to Queens Park.

Documents here:

We are always looking for new blood on the committee. Every community organisation needs to reflect the diversity of the people living in the area, and always needs a variety of different talents to make the machine work. We meet 10 times a year, in the den of The Bungo Bar on Nithsdale Road, and you can contribute as much or as little as you like, according to your interests and skills. Beyond committee work, we also need volunteers to take part in Bungo Cleanups, to help organise local events like Bungo in the Back Lanes, or even introduce new ideas for other events. Have you any time that you can give to your local community? Have you new ideas, but need some help to get them going?

The Society is only as strong as those who contribute, so it needs your support.

Please contact us for further information, before, during or after the event.

Winter 2023 Newsletter is here

The latest newsletter has arrived. If it hasn’t made it through your door already, you can

Read it now!

It’s all Bridges, Back Lanes, Bam, and Bye-bye to Heather Alexander.

And then there is our AGM on Tuesday 7th November at 7.30pm. Along with the usual business there will be a presentation on the future of Queens Park, and the results of the recent consultation.

Thanks to Rhiannon and Paola for editing. If you want to write something for the newsletter, or even better if you fancy helping edit it or laying it out, please get in touch.

You can also find the newsletter, and old ones back to the 1990s, at the BygoneBungo Newsletter Archive.

Back Lane Repairs Update

We have previously reported on plans to undertake some repairs to the back lanes.

It’s been a bit quiet since, mainly because the Council then decided to require us to make a planning application. We have just been informed we have permission to go ahead, and we are looking at a possible start in late April, or failing that in July, depending on the availability of our contractor, Richard Birch Gardens.

The planning application applies to both Vennard/Marywood cross lanes where they meet Vennard Gardens. It can be accessed on the Glasgow Planning Portal, ref 23/00175/FUL, or this direct link might work.

The Marywood Square back lane repairs are just that, and simpler in scope, so we have not pursued a planning application for this work. It may also ultimately be outside our fixed budget, but we will endeavour to achieve what we can.

Meanwhile we were originally told this could be a pilot for further repairs, but have since been informed that we can only apply for funding once. So unless there is a change of policy, the project stops once this work is done.

Nithsdale Road Bridge Reinstatement

The Society has been attempting to engage with Glasgow City Council about the road design on the new bridge since 2019, with the aim to encourage active travel such as walking and cycling, but it wasn’t until November 2022 that we got any response. With the aid of Cllr Jon Molyneux, GoBike and others, agreement was reached regarding improvements on the bridge and junction, including a segregated bike lane.

So we were massively disappointed when the bridge re-opened with the exact same road design as on its predecessor, as was our Councillor. It appears council officers “dropped the ball”.

The Society has written to the council to express our disappointment, and the letter is reproduced below (appendices removed for brevity):

Derek Dunsire,
Group Manager Liveable Neighbourhoods,
Glasgow City Council
Derek.Dunsire@glasgow.gov.uk

26/1/23

Dear Mr Dunsire,

The Strathbungo Society has been trying to engage with Network Rail and Glasgow City Council on future plans for the Nithsdale Rd bridge ever since the plans for electrification of the line were given the go-ahead. For example, after the very helpful presentation given by Henry Dempsey to the Pollokshields Area Partnership about plans for the bridges in the ward and the respective responsibilities of the Council and Network Rail, we tried to engage further (correspondence appended). We had very little success with either NR or GCC but were therefore extremely hopeful when at Cllr Molyneux’s instigation you held a site meeting on the 8th November 2022 which was attended by Cllr Molyneux, a number of GCC staff, a number of the Strathbungo Society Committee and a representative from the Glasgow Cycling Campaign. We were told then that GCC staff had been working on the design of the road across the bridge, to ensure it was future proofed and that it would include a two-way segregated bicycle lane. Your staff also undertook to look at other issues, for example to address water run-off from the extensive area of hardstanding, perhaps by creating a green soakaway / SUD.

It was with dismay therefore that the Strathbungo Society witnessed the contractors returning the bridge to how it was with the same narrow “murder strip” (Go Bike) for cyclists on the north side of the bridge as previously, which is unlikely to meet modern design standards . We understand from Cllr Molyneux that the reason for this is partly that a TRO was required and this was not done in time. While we understand the pressures you and your staff are under and you may not have direct responsibility for TROs, we would appreciate a fuller explanation of what has gone wrong. It seems to us to be crazy that when the Council is so short of resources that we are now in a position where the road over the bridge will require to be dug up again to install the bike lanes. What a waste! Moreover, now the road is open again we suspect there may be more objections to any proposed new traffic layout than there would have been if this had been progressed while the bridge was closed.

We note that on the internet – https://urban-future.org/speaker/derek-dunsire/– you describe yourself as “making cities more sustainable through community-led activities at a local level, involving residents, academia, businesses, city authorities, and other stakeholder organisations … focused on delivering real outcomes and not just project outputs … by working collectively”. Unfortunately, there has been a total absence of any collective working on the Nithsdale Rd Bridge – between the community, Network Rail and Glasgow City Council and elected Councillors. In fact, it seems to have been a “closed shop” of GCC and NR. The Strathbungo Society has never been provided with plans, either by Network Rail or by the Council, of how the finished road bridge would look. Had we been given sight of the plans, we might have also been able to ensure that appropriate action and amendments were made, saving time and money for all concerned. The issues continue we now have serious concerns about the nature and the standard of the stone facing to the concrete parapets which don’t appear suitable for a conservation area. The contractors, BAM, have now been out to look at the work after comments on social media and we would be grateful if you would now ask a planner with conservation expertise to look at the work.

At the onsite meeting we asked for a contact to liaise with the Council on matters to deal with the bridge. Unfortunately, you declined to provide a named contact and instead suggested we use the generic Liveable Neighbourhoods email. The consequences of that failure to appoint a lead seems to us linked to the failure of GCC to provide us with the courtesy of a message explaining what had gone wrong.

The wider issue here is that in good faith we have started to engage with the Liveable Neighbourhoods Project Team at Atkins. It is clear from that that there is very little corporate memory within Glasgow City Council and we have had to provide them with copies of work we did on the Nithsdale Rd area as part of the Pollokshields Charrette. While we understand some of the challenges you and your staff are facing, and don’t mind providing Atkins with information where we can, with GCC now apparently so short of resources that it cannot even deliver a simple project for a bridge we have serious concerns about how any Liveable Neighbourhood Plan for our area can possibly be delivered. That raises the question of whether GCC, instead of outsourcing plans to contractors, might not be better employing staff and increasing its capacity to DO things.

To take things forward in a constructive and collective manner, we propose a meeting to be convened by elected Councillors and to include the Strathbungo Society, the two Community Councils, Go Bike and GCC officials (LNT, NRS / Roads) to review what went wrong – and more importantly to discuss and shape proposals for Strathbungo portion of approved design work for the active travel route between Pollokshaws Rd and Dumbreck Road – which crucially include the road bridge and environs.

The Strathbungo Society is very supportive of the Council’s active travel plans and would like to be in a position to help make these happen by explaining their benefit to local residents. To do this effectively will require collective discussion on design and action on delivery and implementation. In the respect the Society would also like to see early movement in 2023 to establish a new active travel route between the south end of Moray Place to link it Titwood Road.

Yours Sincerely,

Paola Rezzilli
(Chair Strathbungo Society)

cc Cllr Jon Molyneux, Cllr Zen Ghani, Bailie Norman MacLeod, Bailie Hanif Raja, Shawlands Community Council, Pollokshields Development Trust, Go Bike

We have also been in touch with the contractor responsible for the stone facing being installed on the bridge, with concerns about the quality of the initial work, and they have promised to review this.

If we get a reply, we will let you know.

Back Lanes Funding – an update

Having reported last month about the council’s fund to refurbish private lanes, the Society have waited for the release of the details of the conditions and the regulations governing the Fund detailing who can apply and specifics of what funds can be used for. The good news is that details were finally released last Thursday. The bad news is that we have until 11 March to make an application. So we have less than a month to take things forward. This short timetable takes us to just before the local government elections, but presents a major hurdle to preparation of detailed proposals that will make a real difference in our community and that have had scrutiny by the local community.

Our original plan had been to organise to make a bid for each lane, forming sub groups around the individual lanes. That would have enabled individual solutions tailored to meet the needs of the different problems in different areas of Strathbungo. However given that the Council’s rules state that applications need to come from not-for-profit, legally constituted democratic groups with independent bank accounts, the time scales now make that impossible, given that processes for setting up individual groups is both time consuming and and subject to timescales imposed by the authorities who oversee those processes. The Society however is already such a group and can make an application covering the whole Strathbungo area.

The maximum bid to be considered is £20,000. Having examined the criteria that the Council see as being relevant for funding applications, the following would apply as problems common to our lanes:

  • Fly Tipping
  • Lane Surface Water/Drainage Issues
  • Enhanced biodiversity

Looking at the Strathbungo area, we know what the problems are but lack the expertise at this stage to specify solutions or to cost them. For example, drainage and pot holes are a common issue but dealing with them to ensure that we apply sustainable solutions that will last will require a full survey of the lanes. This should provide a costing of repairs and refurbishment. Given that there are promises on the table that the fund will continue going forward, that would allow future bids to be realistically prepared.

The Council also specify that there must be an element of ongoing future management attached to plans. In Strathbungo, we have a history of engagement in the environment, with regular Brighter Bungo clear ups taking place throughout the year. Pre-covid, those activities took place with cover from the council’s Public Liability Insurance. Unfortunately that cover has now been withdrawn. The Society believes that we should apply for money to cover the cost of Public Liability, enabling us to continue to have regular community clear-up days with the safety of volunteers in mind.

In addition, we would like to identify some immediate short projects that could be part of any bid to enhance the amenity of the lanes. Any suggestions should be addressed to treasurer@strathbungo.co.uk. To be included in the bid, they are needed by the end of this month, February, and where possible have some indication of likely costs.

The Society is committed to engaging as many local residents as possible in this process and will be holding a public meeting as well as ensuring that all residents are aware of the project.

Jane Carolan
Chair
Strathbungo Society

Strathbungo Celebrates!

A report on our recent celebration of 50 years by our Chair, Jane Carolan:

Tuesday 16th November saw a crowded Queens Park Hall celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Strathbungo Society in style .

The meeting began with the AGM, where the reports and the accounts of the Society were approved and the current office-bearers: Chair Jane Carolan, Vice Chair Paola Rezzilli and Treasurer Steven Good were re-elected. The formal proceedings were completed by the election of a new committee, blending a mixture of old members returning with several new volunteers from the meeting. However a number of people approached me as chair afterwards and suggested that they were considering joining the committee. There are always spaces for new volunteers and anyone wishing to participate should email me at chair@strathbungo.co.uk.

One office-bearer stood down: our secretary, Sharon. A stalwart of the Strathbungo Society for over twenty five years, Sharon spent many years as the editor, contributor and general whipper-in of our newsletter, keeping it afloat. She also played a major part in the development of Bungo in the Back Lanes from its very early days. Her back garden has provided food and hospitality during our halcyon warm June Bungo days and a refuge from the rain when the weather looked not so kindly on us. Her “retirement” was marked by a presentation from the Society, but is not expected to lessen her contribution to our events .

Sharon’s departure leaves a gap on the committee for the position of secretary and, as in the appeal for committee members, anyone thinking that they could make a contribution can contact the same email address given above.

The event moved on to a cheese and wine celebration, where the new Strathbungo Handbook was launched, with an introduction from the formidable Andrew Greig, whose knowledge of the local architecture and history proved fascinating. Thanks are due to Sharon and to Paola who, with their associates, put together the new handbook.

Watch this space for how to obtain your copy of this publication, telling you everything you ever wanted to know about your local area, or email sales@strathbungo.co.uk for details.

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