THE metal fence is too high to climb, but there are a couple of staves missing, and it is easy to crouch, twist, and swing through to the wasteland on the other side.

Behind me are the clattering streets of Glasgow's Govan. In front of me silence, a ubiquitous overturned supermarket trolley, the charred remains of a fire and a sea of empty, flattened lager cans. Outdoor drinkers, it seems, are not big on recycling.

Yet again I am reminded that while Glasgow is happy to sing about the River Clyde, it nevertheless turns its back on it at most opportunities. This is the Govan Graving Docks, three straight fingers of Clyde water pointing towards Govan, and one of the last industrial landscapes in Glasgow, abandoned for decades and gradually reclaimed by wildlife, flora and the purchasers of Tennent's Super Lager. I had to look up graving in the dictionary - coating the bottom of boats with pitch. Often they are just called the Govan Dry Docks.

My guide to the docks is Glasgow University postgraduate human geography student Ruth Olden, who has been studying the disused docks and the Clyde. "Are the drinkers not a bit threatening?" I ask. "Oh no," says Ruth. "Never a problem. They just want a quiet place to drink and are quite interested in what you are doing. I cleared a path down through the undergrowth to the river where the drovers used to take their cattle, and I think they appreciated the better view it gave them."

This acceptance of the drinkers made me think. It is easy to be dismissive, even intimidated by jaikies. But diagonally across the river is the Hilton Garden Inn near the SECC which has a splendid deck area with tables and chairs where I rush of a sunny evening for a glass of wine. So does that make me better for paying a fiver for a glass of wine than the chap on the opposite bank who paid a fiver for six cans of lager in a blue plastic bag from an off-licence?

Govan Graving Docks were built between 1869 and 1875 by the Clyde Navigation Trust to patch up ships below the waterline. They sailed into the slim docks, a huge metal barrier slid into place behind them, and the water was pumped back into the Clyde. Over 500 people worked at the docks; painters, shipwrights, carpenters and folk who fired lead shot at the hulls to remove barnacles. An easy life it was not.

In 1988 it closed and the vandals moved in. The large pump house has been stripped of most of its metal although its walls remain. The site was bought by an Irish development company which has plans for the usual array of expensive flats, cafes, businesses and waterside bars. I've not seen the plans but I imagine there will be a little boy flying a kite in front of them. Designers always seem to sketch a kite-flyer into their drawings as if this is the epitome of stylish living. It has not yet gone ahead, probably because of the economic downturn and not enough confidence in Govan being a magnet for such high living, but there is talk of it coming soon.

There is an alternative vision - a heritage centre devoted to Glasgow's shipbuilding history - it was, remember, the biggest shipbuilding centre in the world. The docks themselves could berth examples of the ships the Clyde built. What better activity than taking the weans down to see the ships tied up at Govan. Run a little ferry from the site across to the Riverside Museum almost opposite and you have a great day out.

However Ruth, who was showing people around the site last week as part of Glasgow University's Only Human? public festival of the humanities and creative arts, sees a third option. Now she lost me a bit when she started talking about "a work of morphological change" but I think I've got a rough gist.

The expensive flat option, which will no doubt be favoured by Glasgow City Council as it removes an imagined blot from the landscape, excludes the people of Govan from their own riverbank. Even a heritage centre, with its entry fees, scrubbed cobblestones and neat pathways, makes it less of a leisure area for Govanites. If overly rebuilt, it is almost a Disneyfication of Glasgow's industrial past. It would also destroy the habitat it has become.

Ruth and fellow researchers studying the site discovered rare plants, not seen on the west coast of Scotland, probably accidentally brought here on the boats that came for repair. There was a hobo spider's nest discovered, never seen before in Glasgow.

Then earlier this year came a crew of workers to clear the site. Says Ruth: "I found a rare Corsican wildflower on a pile of rubble which was all very exciting. By the time it was identified it had already been uprooted and put through the wood-chipper by the people clearing the site." But we are not talking about evil developers here. The people working on site clearance were working for a charity which helps to give the long-term unemployed new skills. How do you balance that against the life of a Corsican wildflower?

So Ruth's alternative is to utilise the tide of the Clyde and, by some careful reworking of the land, allow the water in to change the landscape as the tide ebbs and flows. It would still be a site of natural plantlife but more accessible so that people can walk, sit, and yes maybe even have a drink or two.

But she has no financial backers for such a plan, so my money would be on the council approving the expensive flats, keen on the rates revenue it would bring in.

The people of Govan? Sold down the Clyde, as some would say.