High-rise flats in Glasgow’s Roystonhill went out with a bang this morning when a controlled explosion brought them down.
The 25-storey block of flats at 40 Rosemount Street had been a fixture on the city’s skyline since 1968.
The 72-metre structure was demolished at 11.20am as part of a community regeneration project.
An exclusion zone was set up and was reopened shortly after the demolition.
Around 240 households were evacuated and residents gathered at nearby St Roch’s Secondary School.
Daniel Haggerty, 37, who lives in nearby Blochairn, said: “These high rises are slums. It's about time they came down.”
His daughter, Rachel, 12, added: “It was good to see it. It was so loud.”
Jamie Robertson, 28, from Knightswood, brought his son, Mason, 4, to see the flats come down.
Jamie said: “I've seen the progress as I've travelled up and down the motorway. I wanted my boy to see it because there will be no high rises left soon.”
Steven Browning, 17, from Maryhill, came to see the demolition with three friends.
He said: “I used to live in the Red Road flats and my dad said it wasn't a very nice place back in the early 2000s. It's sad that these flats are coming down. But, watching blowdowns is so cool so I had to come.”
The Rosemount demolition is part of social landlord GHA’s wider plans to regenerate the north of the city with 141 new homes built at Sighthill and another 157 new-build properties in Barmulloch.
David Fletcher, Director of Regeneration for GHA’s parent company, Wheatley Group, said: “We’ve already started work transforming the area with 55 new homes complete and our tenants are delighted in their new properties.
“This demolition allows us to build another 45 quality homes for our tenants. It’s an exciting time for people living in the area.
“We’d like to thank everyone in the community for their support which will allow us to carry out the demolition quickly and with the minimum of inconvenience.”
A neighbouring block at 20 Rosemount Street was safely demolished in December 2013 by GHA.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel