Double demolition as Glasgow tower blocks to be blown down

BBC News

16 hours ago

Two well-known Glasgow tower blocks are to be blown down in a planned demolition on Sunday.Numbers 305 and 341 Caledonia Road in the Gorbals will be brought down to make way for new housing.Owners New Gorbals Housing Association (NGHA) will replace the high-rise flats with more than 100 new social rent homes. It is understood the explosion will take place on Sunday afternoon with a large exclusion zone set up including the nearby Southern Necropolis cemetery and the Gorbals Rose Garden.
The Caledonia Road flats were constructed in the 1960s as an answer to slum housing, overcrowding and disease.Glasgow struggled after World War Two and the Gorbals area became known as one of Europe's worst slums.About 40,000 people lived in deteriorating tenement housing.By the time the 1960s arrived, high rise flats were one solution to clear the accommodation and build new homes.These concrete blocks were often criticized for being poorly designed, damp, and failing to improve community life, although many local people spent happy lives in these flats before they started being rehoused in 2021.
Many were eventually demolished in controlled explosions as part of ongoing regeneration efforts.The spectacle of collapsing Gorbals tower blocks has attracted attention over the years. Towers in Sandiefield Road came down in 2013, with Norfolk Court's flats taken down in 2016.The Stirlingfauld Place towers were blown down in 2008.The large Queen Elizabeth Square towers came down in September 1993, ending in tragedy.Sixty-one-year-old Helen Tinney died after being struck by debris as she watched the demolition.
The future of the two Caledonia Road had been sealed by the costs involved in bringing dangerous cladding up to acceptable safety standards.After these two blocks come down, just one tower will remain, the neighbouring Waddell Court.The controlled blow down will be managed by contractors Dem-Master.The company has been liaising with other local residents on the arrangements for the demolition. About 850 households will be evacuated from the surrounding area before it can go ahead.The exclusion zone will allow people to observe from a safe distance and people have been warned to expect a loud and dusty process.Dem-Master has been preparing the towers for several months - stripping the buildings and making sure viable materials can be reused.It said that it had worked with the housing association to save tonnes of material from going to landfill.