Great fun up in Shawlands for today’s Olympic Torch Relay and the rain just about held off.

Here’s the first runner kicking off the stretch down Pollokshaws Rd into the wilds of East Renfrewshire.

Seemed very well organised and what an entourage of buses, vans and police! Lots of excited children waving homemade torches and a lucky few who came home with LOCOG-approved-sponsor-branded drums, flags and ribbon sticks.

Glasgow City Council’s Executive Committee has officially approved the Shawlands Town Centre Action Plan. Capital funding of £3.3million will be available to support the action plan over the next five years.

As well as brightening the Bungo through clean-up days and events, the Society is interested in physically improving the green spaces used by all the community. We’ve had a one-man hedge-cutting team operating for a while and keeping hedges in check does make a massive difference to narrow streets but we’d like to do more.

This is one job the committee can’t do alone, however getting involved doesn’t need to be a big commitment.

Here’s some of the things the Society are considering:

• Community gardening evenings – removing weeds in the back lanes and verges/ railway embankments
• Adopting the hard landscaped planter on Nithsdale Rd near Moray Place
• Encouraging residents to put out window boxes and planters
• Cutting back overgrown hedges and trees

We can’t embark on any of this without knowing we have a team of interested volunteers, so what do you think? Fancy spending a few evenings weeding and planting over the next few months? Get in touch via the comments, the contact us form or email chair@strathbungo.co.uk

We’ve had a few false dawns but finally the engineers have packed up their makeshift building site and headed to pastures new.

The clean-up began in earnest on Friday but today the containers went, the piles of building materials and, to sighs of relief all round, the generator – the noise from which has proved a nuisance to many residents, particularly at night time.

We’re hoping that a good clean will follow the tidying away as there’s a lot of dust and accumulated rubbish but it is great to be able to see both sides of the street again and doesn’t the space at the end of the street look huge?!

Concerned residents and the Society will be meeting with Councillors and representatives of LES on Wednesday 6th June to walk the area and discuss the recurring problems with refuse collection.

The aim is to look at some pf the physical problems posed by the built environment and to agree a plan of action with the council to improve the situation. Before the meeting, the Society would like to put together a document which briefly covers the key problems raised with us, together with photographs if possible.

Issues already raised with us which we will include:

• Bin arson on Thorncliffe Lane
• Emptying of public bin on Moray Place at railway bridge
• Bins left out in the lanes behind the Squares and/or being collected in one area, blocking access
• Recycling bins left piled next to walls
• Location of bins for business premises on Nithsdale Rd

Please get in touch via the comments section, contact us, or chair@strathbungo.co.uk. If you have photos that illustrate any of the above that would also be very helpful.

This weekend sees the return of Glasgow’s Southside Film Festival from Thursday 17th May – Sunday 20th. There’s a packed list of events and you can get full details and download a copy of the programme on their blog.

Some great events are happening on our doorstep, including a Quiz night at The Bungo to kick things off on Thursday, Peter Mullan’s NEDS screening at The Shed on Friday night and a looped screening at 2, 3 and 4pm of  Shipyards, Parks and Greek Thompson at the Queens Park Boat Shed.

There’s tonnes more including discussion groups, workshops, children’s activities and, of course, film screenings – surely something for everyone and a lot of it is free.

The Battle of Langside (13 May 1568) may be in line to be added to twenty eight sites that currently constitute Historic Scotland’s Inventory of  Scottish Battlefields.  Historic Scotland is consulting on eleven battlefield sites with Langside  the only one located in Glasgow.  To be successful each site must be able to demonstrate its national importance with key historical events or figures, or for its physical remains and/or archaeological potential.  Given that the battle took place in what is now Queen’s Park and that Mary Queen of Scots defeat led her to flee Scotland to the “protection” of her cousin Elizatheth I, one might think it should be able to win this battle.

Many local place names reflect Langside’s combatants – Moray Place, Regent Park Square and Queens Park, Square and Drive – and demonstrate the strong assocation with this historic event that took place 444 years ago.  Hopefully the Strathbungo Society, Community and City Councils will all work together to get the Battle of Langside duly recognised for its importance to Scottish history and thereby increase people’s understanding of the batle and its site nearby in Queen’s Park.