Housing estate streets named in honour of Ruchill Hospital
Speaking to the Jeremy Vine Show, he explained his original suggestion was to acknowledge "key pioneers" at the hospital, which was originally built to deal with infectious disease.He explained: "The council said that since Black Lives Matter and controversies over naming streets after people, we have decided no longer to name streets after persons alive or dead - so it would need to be something more abstract."I head-scratched and thought 'let's make it more particular to the function of the hospital' - obviously it's tricky to name something Tuberculosis Terrace so I tried to keep them appropriately named."Social media reaction has been mixed, with some comments calling them "crazy" and others cracking jokes. However Sweeney believes the choices serve as an acknowledgment of the history in the area, even if he admits some of that past was "unpleasant", including the hospital dealing with the Aids pandemic in the 1980s.He said: "It's a very important social history and it's trying to credit some of the work done there, but perhaps in a more oblique way than first intended."
Not all of his ideas made the cut though - X-Ray Drive was rejected due to a hyphen being in it, which forced the change to Radiography Road.Some neighbouring streets are, however, named in honour of the architect who designed the old hospital - Alexander McDonald.The new development will feature one, two three and four bedroom homes with a garage or parking space, which Sweeney says will help an area that has consistently suffered from "a chronic lack of homes".A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council said that naming conventions for Glasgow streets have been in place since the late 1980s, basing them around "the history of the site in question."She added "After a series of discussions on an initial list of proposed names, and in keeping with the street naming convention - whereby street names are given using the history of the site in question - the local elected members felt that these names fitted given the former hospital on site was famous for its remarkable work with infectious diseases."
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