While the world’s leaders were driven from Glasgow Airport to the Conference Centre for COP26, few could have imagined the scene below their route. Glasgow City Council has descended into chaos in recent times and this once proud city now finds its streets strewn with rubbish and almost all recycling suspended.
Unfortunately, the Council are also the guardians of many fine buildings within the city, including the People’s Palace and Winter Gardens. The idea of these ‘palaces for the people’ drew on the writings of Ruskin and Morris and there are a number around the UK, though few as fine as Alexander McDonald’s building of 1898. It originally provided reading and recreation rooms, an art gallery and museum in addition to the winter garden with its collection of exotic plants. More recently it has housed a museum depicting the social history of the city.
Sadly, it’s just one of the 81 council-owned buildings which are now closed to the public. It’s not that the Council have refused to spend money on it – they recently approved £350,000 to ensure that the public couldn’t see into the winter garden and to erect a steel fence around the building, but despite their efforts, photographs have now surfaced showing the current condition of the interior (below).
It’s a strange thing democracy – we give vast amounts of responsibility to elected leaders who if they had to apply for their positions wouldn’t have anything on their CV that would even get them onto a longlist.
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John Stewart 