July in Glasgow saw much civic triumphalism as a new motorway route was opened, the M74 extension . The noise mediation works are impressive, perhaps a modicum of a concession to environmentalists opposing road building in the city. It is a shame though that such engineering innovation could not be directed towards sustainable transport infrastructure in Scotland.
Campaigns challenging Glasgow’s obsession with major cemented arterioles have been prominent in the media and important in building green-left alliances in the city. The Pollok Free State, a group opposed to motorway construction in vast green space of Pollok Park, was one such infamous and long-standing campaign in the 1990’s http://www.giventothepeople.org/. During this time I remember being on the other side of the fence, working on an environmental impact assessment for Strathclyde Regional Council on the re-alignment of the A77, which would actually be completed as a motorway. I recall incidents surrounding the protests, a Conservative MP attacking the Pollok Park defenders. Although I also remember this time as when Celtic Football Club were contemplating relocating to Cambuslang and the M74 extension was first mooted.
The new motorway was built but Celtic abandoned plans for a South-East home on the outer reaches of Glasgow partly as a result of a community group unearthing information on heavily contaminated land. Cambuslang, Carmyle and Rutherglen Against Pollution, campaigning with the wonderful acronym CCRAP, undertook research on the extent of chromium waste in Rutherglen and beyond. A former member of the group comments in the Urban Glasgow blog
‘By the end of our research we listed 65 sites throughout the areas from Cambuslang to Dumbarton.
There was a study by Dames and Moore which cost the Council over £250,000 and there were specific recommendations on how to deal with the toxic waste. At the Glencairn Football site, one of the most contaminated, there was to be a a bubble environment where workers were to work in it, with hazard suits and respiratory equipment. Clean air would be controlled and no air was to escape from the bubble.
I am not kidding this was like out of a science fiction book! But when you go down there now, nothing has been done to protect the workers, people living there and the cars passing by going into Glasgow.
This whole M74 project has not stuck to the Dames and Moore report at all. That is where all your taxpayers money goes, on reports that never see the light of day and gather dust up at the Environmental Health Department and the Mitchell Library. ‘
The principal concern was with the former White Chemical works, operating up to 1967 and manufacturing 70% of the U.K.s chromate products. This site was cordoned off in 1992 and a public health campaign erupted over suspected linked cases of leukaemia and kidney tumours in the area. There is evidence of carcinogenic effects from chromium particularly amongst chromate workers. However, academic and government research revealed no clustering in South East Glasgow and so the issue subsided in the Scottish media. More can be written on this environmental justice struggle as some belated success has been achieved with re-mediation of contaminated land recently proceeding in Rutherglen and Cambuslang (see below).
Steeltoun 