Dear readers, we were resigned to this weekend’s dreich weather — the cold, crisp winter we were having was bound to end eventually. Calum copped some artworks at a friend’s fire sale, including a semi-surreal painting of a dog floating in a grey pool surrounded by colourful blobs; he’s dedicating it to Dumpling the Chow Chow. Robbie was at The Laurieston on Saturday afternoon, where he couldn’t shake the feeling that it’s just not the same in the post-Clancy era. It might be his rose-tinted glasses, or it may be that the cask ale was not in peak condition, there was music being played in the main bar, and the service was occasionally aloof. Other than that, he was dazzled by Jessie Buckley’s performance in Hamnet, and squeezed in a soggy trip to the mother of all refuse and recycling centres: Polmadie.
Enough rubbish chat though, and on to today’s briefing. More parking brouhaha, plus Calum’s rundown of the rising star that is Sri Lankan cuisine.
At the start of the new year, we're really keen to hear what you, our readers, think about The Bell. We've set up a short survey where you can tell us what you like, what you don't like, and a bit more about you as well. It only takes 5 minutes and it really helps us to improve what we're doing - many thanks.
Glasgow in Brief
🚗 A petition against parking controls — signed by over 7,000 people and 150 businesses — has been rejected by Glasgow City Council, clearing the way for parking permits to be introduced across the Southside. This will be followed by controls across many other parts of the city, similar to those already in place in the West End. The news will anger many businesses and residents in Shawlands, Battlefield and Strathbungo — although it is clear from our previous reporting that communities remain sharply divided on the issue (despite campaigners claiming to speak for the “united community and electorate”). Campaigns to stop the restrictions in other parts of the city, including Dennistoun and Broomhill, remain ongoing.
🤑 If the above news made some readers spit out their lunch, then you might want to consider skipping the next paragraph. Last year, Glasgow City Council made serious bank through parking fines and permits, according to a Freedom of Information Request (FOI) by Glasgow Live. Across the year ending April 2025, the council netted £11m, with penalty charge notices (PCN) equating to over £8.9m. The £11m figure is almost double that of three years ago, explained in part by fines increasing by over 40 per cent in 2023 when PCNs increased from £60 to £100 (reduced to £50 if paid within 14 days). The changes were introduced to help close the council’s then £49m funding gap. Income raised from parking permits last year amounted to over £2.2m, of which 94% came from the West End, showing how much the council stands to make from permitting measures and PCZs. Has GCC finally found its golden goose?
👋 The embattled director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society has finally announced his successor, though it’s buried deep in the copy of articles run by The Herald and Glasgow Times over the weekend. The pieces are more a celebration of Stuart Robertson’s quarter century tenure at the heritage organisation. To save you all some serious scrolling, he’ll be replaced by Aberdeen City Council’s Matthew Williams, who was previously responsible for income generation at Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums. The articles are a startlingly hagiographic interpretation of his “retirement”, with no mention of the events that directly led to his resignation: namely the destruction of church pews and modesty panels, an investigation by the council which found Robertson to have breached planning conditions, and numerous calls for him to step down from past and current members of the society. Given this, alongside the dire state of Mackintosh’s buildings, it is little wonder Robertson prefers to focus his attention elsewhere, such as the “icing on the cake” of his time at the helm: a Mackintosh-adjacent collaboration with Macallan whisky. The council is yet to adjudicate on its enforcement case against Robertson and chairman Michael Dale, while they await the outcome of a retrospective listed building application.
🏫 If you thought the Mackintosh Society had issues at the top... may we raise you Historic Environment Scotland (HES)? Glasgow Cathedral, Bothwell Castle, and the Antonine Wall are just a few of the 300 treasures managed by the quango, which is seeking opinions from the public about how it should operate. Perhaps it’s just as well the heritage guardians are asking for advice on how to “make decisions with transparency”, given their own troubles. HES has had a tough old time of it in the last year, with reports of “unacceptable governance”, allegations of racism and corruption, “financial weaknesses” identified by auditors, and conduct issues leading to the year’s maddest headline: “Heritage boss who 'twerked on Martin Compston' faces harassment claim.
You can contribute to the consultation via this link by 23 January.
♿ For anyone who walks or wheels around town with a pram, wheelchair, or any other impediment to mobility, a two and a half year project which maps out every single public route in the city is now available online. Called the Glasgow Path + Junction Audit, it’s a “socialist and feminist” project which compiled over 370,000 map markers to indicate whether routes are wide enough, surfaces smooth enough, and kerbs real enough — there’s a category that says “fake kerb — dangerous”. We were hoping to bring you more information on the team behind the project but they remain anonymous online and in their introductory email to us said that, as it has taken well over two years’ work to produce the maps, they are “taking some time off” — well deserved. Anyone with mobility issues will have cursed uneven pavements, blocked drop kerbs and in-the-way wheelie bins. Now, if you need to plan a journey in advance, you’ve got a granular mapping of whatever may be in your way.
🇮🇷 As Iran rocks from yet more anti-government protests, it reveals more evidence of Iranian meddling in Scottish life. Last week, we shared The Times’ reporting on Glasgow’s Ahl al-Bait Society, a local charity which was revealed to support violent members of Tehran’s regime despite receiving hundreds of thousands in public money. Now, for the second time following a similar pattern last June, X/Twitter accounts self-describing as being Scottish users who support independence fell silent right as Iranian authorities executed a wholesale internet blackout across the country. When this happened last June, Cyabra, a disinformation analysis firm, reported that “26% of profiles discussing Scottish independence” that it had assessed “were fake” and that the bot network “went dark immediately after the military strike on Iran on June 13”.
Stories you might have missed
🌊 Could £60m transform this River Clyde site with 800 jobs, Clydebank Post
🏠 Mackintosh townhouse set for office conversion, Urban Realm
⚖️ Glasgow University Rector cleared of antisemitism and terror support, The Herald
🔫 Redesign of George Square picks up pace, “fires starting pistol” on year of transformation, Glasgow City Council
Welcome to The Bell and welcome to 2026. We’re Glasgow's high-quality local newspaper, delivered entirely by email. Sign up to our mailing list and get two totally free editions of The Bell every week: a Monday briefing, full of everything you need to know about that’s going on in the city like this one; and an in-depth weekend read.
No ads, no gimmicks: just click the button below and get our unique brand of local journalism straight to your inbox.
Read/listen/watch: ‘The response is a beautiful thing’: how Glasgow is squaring up to Reform?
The Guardian’s Scotland Correspondent Libby Brooks achieves what often seems impossible when discussing immigration, asylum, and Glasgow’s housing crisis — empathic neutrality. In last weekend’s piece, she interviews Selina Hales, founder of Refuweegee, as the charity celebrates its 10th anniversary. In seeking to address the reported rise in anti-immigration sentiment in Glasgow, Hales and Brooks spell out the scale of the issue that Glasgow faces in enacting its inclusive housing policy while remaining Scotland’s only dispersal area for people who were recently granted asylum. We’ve reported on this many times, such as when Susan Aitken raised the matter at a council meeting, the rising tensions in deprived parts of Glasgow symbolised by flying the saltire. Calum also observed the struggles recent arrivées to Glasgow face when he visited Homeless Project Scotland for an evening.
We also rec:
How a Kimarnock beauty queen caught Scotland's most prolific catfish, BBC
Catch up and coming up:
- Last week we weighed in on the controversial car crackdown the council has been conducting in the past few years. Most recently, the 20mph speed limits set to be rolled out this year across the city. We also analysed the divisive parking controls’ impact on the West End’s economy. It’s an old debate — even older than you might think.
Robbie Armstrong
- On Saturday, Jamie Maxwell took us into a world of Soviet tensions, a fleeing Jewish-Ukrainian family, and how one Glasgow academic managed to see through the iron curtain, shaping Margaret Thatcher’s approach to the cold war.
- This week, we’ve got eyes firmly on May’s Holyrood election. In a Glasgow Bell first, we’re bringing you two sides to a debate: devolution for Glasgow, what should it look like? Read the arguments, one of which is written by council leader Susan Aitken, and let us know where you stand.
From the Editor's inbox:
West End resident Ash Collin’s emailed responding to last week’s article about parking controls and car usage:
The trouble is that it comes across like vacuous policy with zero legwork at its mildest critique and a moneymaking swindle disguised as eco policy at its worst. The transport ecosystem is disjointed, a public-owned train service, 3 or 4 different private bus companies and a literal circle line subway which doesn't cover far across the city beyond a mile or so in all directions from the shore of the Clyde.
Were Glasgow to have a connected transport system like Manchester with a more regular and reliable service, I doubt we'd get as much uproar from residents, though continue to have it from businesses. Residents feel targeted and businesses fear the absence of their tills ringing because people can't afford to go to them. That’s the issue.
Re:view: Kothu Rotti, 106–108 Queen Margaret Drive
In my never-ending hunt for the most humble, most yum place in Glasgow, I was excited to hear that the folk behind a Sri Lankan/South Indian food truck in Woodside had recently opened up a sit-in restaurant on Queen Margaret Drive. I was particularly excited because this is the fourth restaurant in the west of the city to serve up Sri Lankan or Tamil Nadu cuisine: Madras Dosa on Old Dumbarton Road is excellent, the recently-opened Tharas Takeaway on Woodlands Road is very tasty but lacks the polish of the former, and now Kothu Rotti has two venues. On top of those, incoming to Byres Road is a more finessed, dare I say corporate-looking offering by the name of Kochchi, which is replacing Hanoi Bike Shop, and, last year, Sauchiehall Street welcomed international vegetarian South Indian chain Saravanaa Bhavan. This means Glasgow now boasts a large and growing number of Sri Lankan and South Indian eateries, including Southside businesses such as The Jolly Tamil, Ceylon Tea Bar, and Kofi Kade and the Barras’ food truck Ceylon Cartel. Is Sri Lankan and Tamil Nadu cuisine having a moment?
Having previously eaten a standout meal of mutton curry, and prawn pepper fry at Kothu Rotti’s foodtruck, I entered their bricks-and-mortar venue keen to see if they’ve taken their food to new heights. Unfortunately, I caught them on a low-ebb Sunday night, when they didn’t have half the menu items I was hoping to sample. The chicken biryani, sadly, was also served lukewarm at best. Nonetheless, the food was tasty, with the same flickers of affordable culinary excellence (AKA Humble Yum) as its food-truck sibling. The vegetable pakora was actually one of the best I’ve had, and the parottas scratched my perpetual itch for flakey flatbreads. Topping it off, it is very affordable for a curry joint in the West End. A plate of pakora, a chicken on the bone curry, two parottas and a chicken biryani all came to just £23. I’ll be back, if only to try out the missing half of the menu. —Calum
Glasgow Calendar: The Big Debate (pre-debate reception)
If, after our upcoming devolution debate, you’ve still got appetite for a big-issue discussion, head along to the Glasgow Uni Union for a face-off over whether the UK and Scotland should rejoin the EU. Hosted by the European Movement in Scotland, you can predict where their slant will point. If you fancy a “pre-debate reception”, book tickets online.
Free, The Reading Room, Glasgow University Union, Friday 16 January, 6.45pm
Also on:
Celtic Connections, various venues, 15 Jan–1 Feb.
Thanks for reading today's Monday briefing. You can get two totally free editions of The Bell every week by signing up to our regular mailing list. Just click the button below. No cost. Just old school local journalism.
If someone forwarded you this newsletter, click here to sign up to get quality local journalism in your inbox.
Comments
How to comment:
If you are already a member,
click here to sign in
and leave a comment.
If you aren't a member,
sign up here
to be able to leave a comment.
To add your photo, click here to create a profile on Gravatar.
