What’s going on at the Victoria Infirmary development?

Dear readers, as ever, we are delighted to welcome you to another edition of Glasgow’s definitive start-of-the-week briefing. How were your weekends? Calum’s was relaxed and punctuated by dog walks, food (noodles on Friday, curry on Saturday, steak on Sunday), and trips to the pool. Robbie’s was also predictably food and drink themed: pints of cask ale at the State, an autumnal squash and brown butter risotto, and a coffee-fuelled walk round Pollok to cap it off. He may even have squeezed in an elderflower cocktail, a taste of now-distant summer sunshine.   

The festive season is fast approaching. Which can mean only one thing: The Bell’s mildly Christmas-themed quiz. See the box below for all the information you need. We’ve already started reading our dictionaries in preparation. 

We’ve got a full week of reports for you, so let’s get you set up. Here’s your briefing.

It's the most quizzical time of the year: Fancy using your brains, meeting fellow readers, and getting festive while duking it out for a £100 cash prize?

That’s right; on 4 December, The Bell is going to be hosting its very own Christmas quiz! We’ll be taking over Woodlands Road pub Dram for an evening of testing your knowledge on everything from music, pop culture, history and — of course — Glasgow.

Tickets are £4 for The Bell’s paying supporters and £5 for free subscribers and non-members (who are extremely welcome to come along). Minimum teams of two and maximum six; the winners will receive £100 in cash. There will also be plenty of time for mingling after the main business of the evening has wrapped up.

Join us from 7.30pm on 4 December for some classic Christmas craic. See you there!

Get tickets

Glasgow in Brief

🏥 Contrary to various media reports about the former Victoria Infirmary Nightingale buildings being “completed”, “reborn”, “restored” and “set for launch”, we can confirm that the buildings in question remain shrouded in scaffolding and far from completion. As ever, don’t believe the hype where property companies and well-drafted press releases are concerned. What is true is that the £29.3m first phase of the development has been completed, five years after work first began. Work to redevelop the rest of the site is ongoing, including the restoration of the open-plan Nightingale wards, as confirmed by Urban Realm last month. Cycling past the completed parts of the development this morning — bathed in the early morning golden sun — the frontage of one building had been stripped of its balcony, and work looked scarcely to have started. Windows were broken and boarded up, and the visible parts of the interior were all but a shell. The new balconies on the other two buildings had been erected, and windows installed, but both were entirely wrapped in scaffolding and blue tarp. Reborn it is not. 

The 56 new (read incomplete) apartments known as the Nightingale Collection, officially went on sale on Friday. The starting price, if you’re wondering, is £210,000, but rises to a dizzying £625,000 for the ‘skylark’: a duplex four bedroom apartment “framed by the iconic curved façade of The Nightingale buildings”. Beech Grove Homes, a subsidiary of Sanctuary, boasts of their “reinstated period detailing” and “private off-street parking”. But the reality on the ground lacks the sheen of PR bluster.

The Bell has heard from various current residents of phase one of the new Victoria development, who are less than happy with the pace of progress and parking issues. “Nearly 2 years since we’ve moved in and I’d argue it looks several times worse than it did when we moved in. The areas surround[ing] the buildings are a mess and the roads are a disgrace,” one resident told us. Another resident was more positive. “The flats themselves are fantastic, really bright and warm, brilliant outdoor space,” they told us over the phone. But there remain serious issues with “the area still being a building site and the parking issues”. The 32 allocated parking spaces, Sanctuary has belatedly informed the residents, will be allocated on completion of the development. “When will that be? 2030?” the resident asked rhetorically. Meanwhile, the temporary road remains full of potholes and is regularly blocked by cars, meaning emergency vehicles don’t always have access and bin collections are missed. As for the much talked about Nightingale wards? “It’s just full of scaffolding and three builders kicking about. It’s a riot. It’s going to be years before they are in.” (The Bell can confirm there was at least one builder working on the Nightingale buildings at 9:10 this morning.) We asked Sanctuary when they expect buyers of the Nightingale flats to be able to move in, we are yet to receive a response.

The second public consultation for the new Vic will be held on Wednesday 19th November from 4–8pm at Couper Institute Library, 84 Clarkston Road, Glasgow, G44 3DA.

🌳 On Thursday, another prime Mackintosh masterpiece that has lain unused for half a decade had its future secured. (No, not that one.) The Lighthouse — formerly Scotland's national centre for design and architecture — has been empty since it closed during Covid. Owned by the council, the Mitchell Lane property now looks set for a new life as the main Scottish hub for Sustainable Ventures, a London-based company described as the “cornerstone of Europe's climate tech ecosystem” (according to an investor round-up, at least). News of a 99-year lease and the council securing an 8% cut of revenues was announced last week. So we thought we’d have a wee look into Sustainable Ventures to give you an idea of who they are and what they do.

Sustainable Ventures started life in 2011 when founders Christopher Morris and Andrew Wordsworth sought to tackle the climate emergency by creating commercially viable solutions. To do this, they decided climate tech start ups needed more support to scale their businesses. An early success was the founding of the UK’s first fully electric car sharing club, E-Car Club, which was bought by Europcar in 2015. (Morris and Wordsworth remained in leadership roles.) Great success for a pioneering climate-friendly approach to car sharing, or so it seemed. The issue is that, in the UK at least, the electric car sharing model Morris and Wordsworth sold is no longer offered by Europcar. It has, in essence, been bought and folded, which is a marker of success for many start-ups. The electric car sharing model does survive in Europcar’s Ubeeqo brand, but that’s not available in the UK. 

So what does Glasgow get in return, other than the aforementioned 8% slice of the pie? Sustainable Ventures hope that their north-of-the-border hub will create up to 5,000 jobs and support 500 businesses. This is where the value lies locally, rather than in the 8% of revenue figure that the council will receive as rent for the Lighthouse. Comparing Glasgow City Council’s deal with Sustainable Ventures’ first major premises, 8% doesn’t look too bad. In 2023, Sustainable Ventures moved into the County Hall in London’s Lambeth borough. To tempt them, Lambeth council awarded them a £1.4m grant to fit out their new workspace — similar to the one they’re planning for the Lighthouse. But on top of the council’s grant, it also secured £3.3m from Big Issue Invest. Glasgow council has already invested £2m of UK Government funding into renovating the Lighthouse, which it confirmed earlier this year, with the hope of attracting private investment as a result. So Sustainable Ventures are again benefiting from millions of public investment in spaces into which councils hope small businesses will flock, bringing with them jobs, skills, and tax revenue. ‘If you build it, they will come’ seems to be the bet Glasgow council are making. Whether it pays off, time will tell.  

💸 It looks like Michelle Mone and Doug Barrowman may have avoided paying tax on their £65m PPE profits, according to the non-profit Tax Policy Associates. HMRC is now trying to retrieve £39m in tax, in addition to the £122m (plus interest) owed to the Government for faulty PPE. Tax expert and founder of TPA Dan Neidle has a theory on how this happened. Barrowman’s former companies have previously run aggressive tax avoidance schemes. When they failed (as they inevitably did), they entered administration so that no tax was paid. “The evidence suggests he may have done the same again — using a scheme to avoid tax on the £65m, and an administration to ensure that any HMRC challenge is pointless,” says Neidle. It’s just the latest in Dennistoun-born Mone and her husband Barrowman’s disasterclass in PR. We eagerly await the next installment.

Stories you might have missed:

👎 Public trust in Glasgow City Council plummets as residents vent frustrations, Daily Record

☢️ Suspect arrested after 'hazardous liquid' thrown at woman in Glasgow, BBC

📚 Denise Mina welcomes the return of Aye Write, BBC

✂️ £40m funding package may result in a cut for Glasgow, Herald

🟩 Celtic ban Green Brigade after police & steward assault, BBC

✊🏿 Slavery and colonial trail to be launched in Glasgow, BBC

💌 Glasgow interfaith group unites against division, GCC

😡 Peter Capaldi takes a pop at the state of the city, Herald

Read/listen/watch: Kai Reesu’s Kompromat vol.i

“‘This is a fun one, I like this one — bring on the jazz,’ says LA rapper Jurnalist, launching into a track called ‘Purposes’ with the nu-jazz outfit, Kai Reesu.” So we started our music review of Kai Reesu back in March. Obviously then, we were buzzing to learn the Glasgow outfit bagged Scottish album of the year at last week’s SAY awards. Kompromat vol.i  was praised as a “bold, genre-blending record”. The band hails from Glasgow, Paisley and Thurso — but took on a whole new sound when Jurnalist joined their ranks. This is the story of how that musical meeting of minds unfolded. The album effortlessly blends jazz and psychedelic funk with boom bap era hip hop and lyrical, introspective wordplay. Geez more, gaun.

We also rec: 

Lynne Ramsay’s new film, ‘Die, My Love’ boasts star turns from Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattison, but critics are divided.

Catch up and coming up:

• Last week, Robbie and Calum embarked on a mission with one goal: to see if the Southside had finally sorted its anti-social fireworks. Read their dispatch to see how it went. 
  
  In the comments, Martin said there were still “mortar bombs going off at 2am”, yikes. The so-called fireworks control zones, in place in Pollokshields, Govanhill, and Broomhouse, expire today.

Has Glasgow snuffed out problem fireworks?

A dispatch from the city’s first firework control zones

The BellRobbie Armstrong

• This week, we’re bringing you an exclusive story on the sorry state of much of the Mitchell Library. If you’ve got any memories there or any anecdotes you wish to share, get in touch on editor@glasgowbell.co.uk
• The upcoming weekend read is a genuinely moving tale of two men’s 60-year friendship and how the M8 almost put a roadblock between them.

From the editor‘s inbox

We’ve had quite a few responses to our assessment of the firework control zones across the city. Comments on our Instagram suggest Stepps and Mansewood were pretty noisy, with the former having visibility of only 150 yards due to the smoke, according to one commenter. But on a lighter note, we remarked in our dispatch that the chair of Pollokshields Community Council, Ameen Mohammed, “has the air of a politician-in-waiting”. Well, a particularly clued-in reader got in touch to tell us that Mohammed is very much in waiting. In fact, he’s the Labour candidate for Southside in next year’s Holyrood elections.

Re:view: The Caravan Shop, 364 Great Western Road

Sometimes, as self-appointed members of the culinary cognoscenti, The Bell is invited to lavish grand openings of the city’s finest establishments. More often than not though, we aren’t. True to form, The Bell wasn’t explicitly invited to the opening of the Caravan Shop’s new downstairs space, but we did manage to wangle our way in, such is our guile. Anyway, we enjoyed some rather delicious free wine (hard job, I know) including a 2020 Mosel riesling and a South African chenin.

It got Robbie reflecting on how much Glasgow’s wine scene has come on since the days when he was the one waiting tables. Today, there is a whole subsection of bars and restaus devoted to natural and low intervention wines, adding to the hitherto better-known conventional spots. Vegetarian food and pet nat? Try Sylvan. World class European natural wines: look no further than Made From Grapes. Feeling spenny: there’s Brett. Can’t decide between cocktails and cabernet: Lunar. Now you can add Caravan to the mix. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up, and that’s the way we like it.

Glasgow Calendar: Aye Write

It’s the final week of Glasgow's book festival. Our pick is Chris Leslie, Mitch Miller and Alison Irvine’s talk on their 18-month research project on the battle to save Cumbernauld’s brutalist town centre. 

Concrete Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Cumbernauld Town Centre, 7.45pm, Thursday 13 November, the Mitchell Library.

Other dates for your diary:

• The Ferret: birthday party and relaunch, 13 November, £15 
• Brutal Scotland book launch by Simon Phipps, 13 November, free
• Fergus McReadie Trio, 13 November, £33.75