( site of ) Red Road Flats (Glasgow)

United Kingdom / Scotland / Bishopbriggs / Glasgow
 high-rise, apartment building
The two 28-storey slab blocks and five 31-storey point blocks were designed for Glasgow Corporation by Sam Bunton & Associates and at their completion in 1969 they were the tallest residential blocks in Europe. Since then they have dominated the skyline of the north east of the city, although the Bluevale/Whitevale "Twin Towers" built subsequently in Camlachie are slightly taller, but Red Road has the record for highest occupied floor level.

Uniquely, they were built with steel frames clad in asbestos panels, the first time such a technique had been used in Glasgow. The exterior asbestos was covered over by metal overcladding in the late 1970s, but much of the material still exists within the buildngs which has complicated their demolition.

As with many other high-rise schemes, poor planning and cost-cutting resulted in a lack of amenities, poor services and a high incidence of vandalism and other social problems. In 1980 two blocks of flats were declared unfit to live. A rescue programme resulted in the conversion of one for student and executive use and another for the YMCA. In recent years some of the Red Road flats have housed Kosovan refugees and are now home to asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa, Asia, the former Soviet Union, Iran and Iraq.

Moves are now afoot to demolish the complex, due to their unique steel construction they cannot be blown down in the conventional manner - instead the internals and asbestos fireproofing have to be painstakingly dismantled. A process that will take until the end of the 2010s. On June 12th 2012, the first of the slab blocks at 153 Petershill Road (the slab block at the eastern side of the estate) was felled by controlled explosion.

10 Petershill Court (Red Road) : 27 floors, 80m (1969), 303 units
63 Petershill Drive (Red Road) : 31 floors, 89m (1967), 120 units
93 Petershill Drive (Red Road) : 31 floors, 89m (1967), 120 units
33 Petershill Drive (Red Road) : 31 floors, 89m (1967), 120 units
123 Petershill Drive (Red Road) : 31 floors, 89m (1967), 120 units
10 Red Road Court (Red Road) : 31 floors, 89m (1966), 120 units
21 Birnie Court (Red Road) : 31 floors, 89m (1966), 120 units (Demolished May 2013)
153 Petershill Drive (Red Road) : 27 floors, 80m (1969), 303 units (Demolished June 2012)
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Road_(flats)
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   55°52'49"N   4°12'27"W

Comments

  • didn't these all get demolished...?
  • not yet. their being pulled down one by one. the process beginning in 2009.
  • ah! nice photies by the way
  • thanks mate :) but i cant take the credit for taking them but its an awfi waste to have them hanging round my desktop and no-one else getting 2 see them without searching round a few hundred websites so i put them up here.
  • wasnt the last one taken in pollokshaws?
This article was last modified 7 years ago