Glasgow's Hard Men by Robert Jeffrey

Author:Robert Jeffrey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845028756
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2014-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

12

DEATH BY FIRE AND WAR ON THE STREETS

If there was one street in Glasgow that epitomised the problems of poverty and crime in a sink estate, it was Bankend Street, Ruchazie. There were 64 houses in the street, a familiar landmark for motorists driving into the city along the M8 from the east. This was a drab collection of crumbling homes, an uninviting place, an ugly blot on the landscape that created a hell to live in that was almost unimaginable to those who had not experienced it. At the end of the 1980s the city decided that it could not go on. Bankend Street and its neighbours were on a receiving end of a spectacular and costly makeover. Each house had £11,000 spent on it and the drabness of the buildings was replaced by neat balconies, attractive new roofs, and other bright external features. Well-intentioned politicians thought that at least some of the problems of the area would be ameliorated by waving a wand over the bricks and mortar. How wrong could they be? The story of the death of Bankend Street itself and the horrific deaths of its most famous residents underlines the immense problems of life in the East End of Glasgow in the ’80s.

Four years on from the optimism of the makeover, bulldozers were sweeping away the homes that had so recently been improved. The occupancy rate had dropped to 50 per cent with one section of the street completely burned out. Anti-social tenants, combined with the systematic destructiveness of local youths and children, had created a new nightmare. Housing officials decided to cut their losses and get out. Local councillor Frank McAveety, one of the rising young stars of Labour local government, described the situation as a disaster brought about by a host of factors that were never addressed. According to him the council failed to consider the quality of tenants housed there, and the willingness of the local community to tackle some of the area’s deep-seated social problems. He told The Herald: ‘An anti-social element brought that improved stock to its knees, and we had to make a pretty dramatic decision, which had the support of the remaining tenants.’

The housing department had encountered a severe level of vandalism, on a scale seldom encountered on housing estates. The repair effort was almost completely tied up in coping with damage wrought by vandals rather than meeting the needs of the tenants. Security doors were battered down and whole heating systems stolen from empty houses. Councillor McAveety added: ‘It’s a genuine mistake that we didn’t cope with these issues. We aren’t just talking about young people in their 20s being involved. We are talking about youngsters between 13 and 14 years of age engaging in systematic destruction.’

He went on to say that intimidation had played a major part in the council’s failure to deal with anti-social elements. Few people wanted to give evidence in court against neighbours who could give them serious problems. He argued: ‘Peer pressure has to work.

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