Details emerge of demolitions of North Lanarkshire tower blocks
As part of phase one, more than 1,600 properties have been vacated, with several towers demolished and others repurposed to support the Ukraine Resettlement Programme.
Phase two is now underway, with decanting progressing across sites in Wishaw, Kilsyth, Airdrie, Coatbridge, and Motherwell.
CAD Towers (Image: North Lanarkshire Council)
Read more: New Glasgow-inspired wellbeing wallpaper unveiled by SAMH
Key milestones include ongoing demolition works at Jackson Court in Coatbridge and Coursington, Allan, and Draffen Towers in Motherwell, where a controlled blowdown is planned to take place later in the year.
Preparations are also progressing for future demolitions at Dunbeth Court in Coatbridge and Allershaw Tower, Wishaw.
Read more: Athletics club hosts first round of road race series at Glasgow Green
(Image: North Lanarkshire Council)
Councillor Michael McPake, convener of housing, said: "We're making real progress in delivering safe, modern homes that meet the needs of our residents.
"This programme is not just about replacing buildings, it's about improving lives, enhancing communities, and ensuring our housing stock is fit for the future."
Alongside demolition projects, safety improvements such as sprinkler installations, fire safety upgrades, and lift replacements in five tower blocks are also being implemented.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Glasgow Times
3 days ago
- Glasgow Times
Installation of temporary classrooms at Glenboig school approved
The plan will see two temporary classrooms, along with cloakroom, toilets and storerooms, set up in the grounds of Glenboig Primary School. A disabled access ramp will be positioned at the north entrance and each classroom will have its own emergency exit to the south. This building will be positioned in the existing school car park so North Lanarkshire Council has reached an agreement with Our Lady and St. Joseph's Church to provide alternative parking and drop off facilities there. READ MORE: Popular Scottish tourist attraction collapses in liquidation after 20 years This means that a formalised 53-space car park with a designated drop off facility, new islands, footpath provision and a patrolled crossing point across South Medrox Street will be provided. A report on the planning decision notes that the council's roads department has no objection to these arrangements as the new footways will improve pedestrian links between the school and the alternative car park and South Medrox Street has no through traffic and the patrolled crossing location is considered acceptable. Also, the additional parking within the church grounds offers greater capacity than is currently found at the school. No objections to the planning application were received during the consultation period and permission will remain for a period of five years, expiring in July 2030.
BBC News
3 days ago
- BBC News
Glasgow streets awash with colour for Pride march
Thousands of people have brought colour to the streets of Glasgow as they took part in this year's Pride streets were awash with rainbow colours adorned by the crowds who carried rainbow-coloured balloons and march began at Kelvingrove Park before weaving through the city to Barrowland Park where the celebrations event is held to promote equality and inclusion.
Times
4 days ago
- Times
After freezing dead Somali pirates running ports company will be plain sailing
Clearing a food freezer for the bodies of dead pirates isn't a typical day at work for most people. For Captain Susan Cloggie-Holden, it was a grim necessity while sailing off Somalia, and just one of many 'salty sea tales' from a career that has taken her around the world. A passion for messing about in small boats on the River Clyde as a teenager morphed into supporting peacekeeping operations in hostile seas, as well as being chased by elephant seals on a remote island in the South Atlantic. Thankfully the 42-year-old did not inherit the seasickness that made her father feel queasy, even when using the Renfrew ferry. Cloggie-Holden has just become the first woman to be group harbour master at Peel Ports Group after a decorated career in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA). In the RFA she was also the first female to become a commanding officer when in 2021 she took charge of Tiderace, a replenishment tanker for Royal Navy warships. Raised in the Drumchapel area of Glasgow, Cloggie-Holden found her calling when she joined the Sea Cadets in Clydebank. 'Pretty much every summer I used to spend on boats somewhere,' she said. 'I think I gave my parents an easy ride because they didn't see me all summer, I'd come home, get my washing done, pack my bag and go off again.' A two-week stint on the tall ship Stavros S Niarchos as it sailed from Greenock to Aberdeen cemented her ocean ambitions. By her fifth year at Bearsden Academy she had decided against university and was set on going to Glasgow College of Nautical Studies to prepare for a life on the waves. The choice between Royal Navy and merchant navy came down to practicalities. 'I'll be honest I don't like sharing toilets and showers, I quite like my own space,' Cloggie-Holden said. 'I spent about three days on HMS Somerset and absolutely hated every minute of it because there was 27 people sharing the same space and I had a locker the size of a kitchen drawer. 'So I thought maybe I don't really want to live like this.' While the RFA is staffed by civilians it provides support to the navy and its vessels have defensive weapons. Cloggie-Holden was on ships that supported operations against the Taliban in 2001-02, worked with the Iraqi navy in 2006-07, engaged in counter-piracy off Somalia in 2008-09 and supplied Royal Navy vessels off the coast of Libya in 2011. In the Gulf of Aden, between Yemen and Somalia, she was tasked with communicating with vessels that were being approached by pirates. 'They used to attack at sunrise and sunset and we found that having a female voice on the other side of the [radio] was actually quite calming for the crew of the merchant vessels,' she said. 'I used to chat to them, tell them what to do, how to evade the pirates. 'One of the warships that was out there, they boarded a vessel and the pirates basically pointed guns at them. The Royal Marines, as you can imagine, don't like having guns pointed at them. 'We ended up taking the pirates on board, we had two dead ones and nine living ones on the ship and took them into Kenya. 'I was telling someone the other day, we just had to clear the freezer and put two pirates in it and then we had to do a burial at sea.' Cloggie-Holden acknowledges life at sea can be dangerous, but says one trip, from Plymouth to Florida, in December 2011 was her worst. She said: 'We got absolutely battered. We had a storm from pretty much every direction as we crossed the Atlantic. 'We were taking damage, a wave came over our poop deck and ripped loads of guardrails off, we lost some mooring lines, it flooded a few cabins, we lost our port-side navigation lights one night. 'Nothing got done on that ship on the way across, we just had to protect our people and get across there as quickly as possible. 'It's probably the only time at sea that I thought 'this is a little bit hairy, this is not very comfortable'.' Travelling the world, Cloggie-Holden often came up-close-and-personal with wild animals in their natural habitat. While sailing around the island of South Georgia, she and her crew saw penguins and were chased by elephant seals. 'I think when you're at sea you see things that you take for granted,' she said. 'More stars than you will ever see when there's any sort of light pollution. Just sitting on a flight deck at midnight you see that sort of stuff — like dolphins, whales, flying fish, plankton blooms.' The maritime industry is still very male dominated — one report by the International Maritime Organisation suggests women account for just 1 per cent of seafarers. But Cloggie-Holden is working to change that. In 2021 she received the Merchant Navy Medal for her efforts to improve the gender balance in the industry. Cloggie-Holden says she had to work harder to prove herself in her early days. One incident, when a senior colleague made a lewd comment in a bar suggesting her most recent promotion was because she was a woman, stands out. 'I said 'you can do one',' she recalls and there was an apology to her about the incident the following morning. But the onlookers in the bar who didn't know her might have taken the words as true and 'that's the comment that females at sea don't need'. Having achieved the dream of becoming a captain of a vessel her more recent RFA work included being captain of port operations. That meant auditing ports around the world where the Ministry of Defence has an interest and the switch opened up the possibility of more time spent on dry land. There was also a 'huge' change going on in her personal life at that time, as her husband Peter Holden, a retired RFA captain who previously commanded the helicopter training vessel Argus, became seriously ill with cancer. He died in February and Cloggie-Holden said: 'He knew I was coming here [to Peel Ports]. 'He said it's the best decision you've ever made, and actually I had a new adventure ahead of me.' The Peel Ports role, where she will oversee the operations at Clydeport on the River Clyde, the Port of Liverpool and London Medway, is exactly that, an adventure. As the person in charge of all maritime operations such as vessel traffic, navigation, safety, security, harbour services and pilotage it is not going to be a 'cushy nine to five job'. 'I've got enough working life left in me that this is a second career. I've had my career at sea, this is now my career in ports,' she says. Outside work she has taken up curling and is soon to try padel. She added: 'I've decided in life since I started with Peel, since I lost Peter that I'm just not going to say no to anything new. 'So when someone says 'Do you want to go and do that?' Yeah, let's do it.'
