by RapidAssistant » Wed Nov 28, 2012 2:14 pm
I guess my overall point here in highlighting how difficult it is to reach the Glasgow Hilton on foot, is that this area of the city has suffered from one planning disaster after another for decades. It is interesting when you read TripAdvisor reviews of both the Hilton and Marriott from foreign visitors, and one of the criticisms that comes up again and again, is that they are not accessible by foot, the area is uninviting etc etc.
It stems from GCC's obsession with allowing shiny new office blocks to get built around there - they are away to allow the building of St Vincent Plaza in front of the Britoil/Santander building - in doing this they are just compounding the labyrinth of buildings even more. The Bridge to Nowhere might be getting connected up, but is it worth connecting up to anything??
How about: -
Demolishing Dial House (a hideous 1960s eyesore)
Probably getting rid of Bothwell St telephone exchange as well.
This would re-establish the connection between Bishop Lane and William Street, and you could do something nice to that whole space in terms of "public realm" (a hideous modern term, but I'll use it...), maybe landscaping, or some sort of public space with better ameinities. If the Bothwell Plaza development gets resurrected, and if they eventually get rid of the remains of the Anderston Centre's shopping precinct, you could eventually have one big continuous landscaped area with a combination public/private housing and a centrepiece international "hotel cluster"of sorts in the middle that you can freely walk around and has good links to the city centre - all reunited with the rest of Anderston through both the Bridge to Nowhere's completion, and all the regeneration work going on within the old 1960s schemes on the western side of the motorway.
All sounds too good to be a sensible idea on the part of city council planners. They'd just rather allow more and more soulless glass and steel office blocks to be built in the area, as collecting rates is better than improving the built environment.