ACROSS Glasgow a group of marginalised communities feature often in that shape-shifting undertaking the civic elites like to call “The National Conversation”. The names of these places are fixtures in the salons and drinks parties where affluent liberal types gather to wring their hands and talk about ‘outcomes” and how to “deliver” them. They’ll have done charity treks in Kathmandu more often than they’ll ever have visited Drumchapel or Possilpark or Shettleston or Milton.

Drumchapel gets it particularly tight, owing to its proximity to Bearsden, the somnambulant eventide suburb of west central Scotland. For many years, enterprising picture editors on national newspapers sent photographers to a well-known grassy vantage-point between Drumchapel and Bearsden. There, they’d be instructed to take the same wide-angle shot that captured both districts. Between these two communities an adult male lost (or gained) 12 years of his life expectancy.

You went to Bearsden to play golf; drink artisan lattes and grow old at your leisure. In Drumchapel you were expected merely to exist and then to die before your time owing to a familiar cast of pathogens: mass unemployment; social deprivation and a child poverty rate of 49%.

It was 70 years ago that Drumchapel became one of four sprawling housing estates conceived by town planners and their political masters as havens for the working-class communities displaced by Glasgow’s slum clearances. The massive house-building programme was unaccompanied by anything resembling a local amenity or a leisure facility.

An infamously concealed report from the late 1960s revealed that essential repairs and basic maintenance of housing-stock were being neglected and that these had contributed to bad health and early mortality.

There was a pervading sense that the city’s working-class communities wouldn’t appreciate leisure facilities. And besides, they’d probably be too tired to use them anyway. Billy Connolly called Drumchapel “a desert wi’ windaes” and we all laughed, even though none of us had actually ever been there. Connolly wasn’t mocking Drumchapel, rather he was condemning the planners who had made it that way.

As with many of Glasgow’s defamed working-class communities, it’s only when you deign to visit them that a different picture emerges: of overcoming challenges; fierce community pride and an eternal optimism reinforced by people helping each other and providing what services and activities they can for their children.

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Last week, the culmination of two decades of local activism and organisation received its reward when Drumchapel received £16.5m from the UK’s levelling up fund for an ambitious programme of regeneration to proceed around the community’s main shopping centre. The headline developments include a more elegant frontage on the shopping centre itself; hundreds of affordable and high quality new-build homes; a smart new public plaza and an ambitious network of walking and cycling routes.

What this will unlock is far greater though than the new built environment. Alex Maclean, head of Consultancy Services at Glasgow City Council and a key member of the LUF bid team knows Drumchapel well. He believes that too often this community had been unfairly maligned. “There’s always been aspiration here,” he said. “Drumchapel was never as bad as popular legend indicated. But like other such places, they chose to build the houses before the facilities. This was a popular destination for people when it had the well-known Reo Stakis hotel and restaurant and when the shopping centre rivalled the Almondvale in Livingston.

“I worked here 25 years ago clearing old tenement council housing, but the replacement development didn’t happen owing to the many mine-workings and historic problems with flooding. There were easier places for developers to build houses.”

And, of course, it wasn’t helped by the wretched practice of land banking. This is when developers weaponise the markets and large-scale profiteering to sap the heart of working-class communities and erode their spirit. Construction firms buy up plots of land and then sit on them until the right market conditions resulting in spike in demand occurs. It’s a form of predation where they wait for local improvements or better schools and health facilities and then build when the chance to maximise profits presents itself. Meanwhile, the communities are hollowed out as families are driven apart by the need to move from their childhood communities to seek a family-sized home.

A mini walking tour around the centre of Drumchapel on Friday reveals why local people want to stay in this neighbourhood and how it can thrive. It also shows the obstacles that had previously prevented it from doing so. The shopping centre itself is busy and – unlike so many High Streets across west central Scotland – there are few gap sites and empty shops. As we walk a kestrel lands in the middle of Drumchapel Park, bookended by two soft play areas. The surrounding streets are well-maintained and in the distance the Peel Glen through which part of the Antonine Wall proceeds.

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Yet, the wasteland in front of the shops entices anti-social behaviour and drug consumption. It’s not a place where parents want their children to venture. It also seems to be marooned amidst constantly swirling traffic currents in every direction which get sucked towards the roundabout. Only once you negotiate this can you get access to Garscadden House, a large Aldi and – further along – the Edrington building, home of one of the UK’s largest drinks companies and the ore-eminent local employer in the area.

The planned housing development for this expanse along with the water feature will transform this community and begin to nudge the levers of inward investment and further funding.

“We had been looking at a community hub,” says Mr Maclean, “because, though we have the swimming pool and community centre and the Donald Dewar sports centre, we needed something that local groups can call their own. The library will be moved within Garscadden House and that will be developed as a place where local groups can find a permanent home.

“It’s a large neighbourhood, so we can’t put everything down here. Active travel is therefore important and vital to making this all work. It’s why planned cycle lanes are so important. A good community bus service is also important in a place like Drumchapel, especially in getting people to and from the health centres and the shopping centre.”

Drumchapel’s residents want merely what most people want, including not needing to move away from their own people. “People don’t want to move away from Drumchapel,” says Anne McTaggart, the local councillor for Drumchapel/Anniesland. “They have such a deep love for this place reinforced by several generations of their families. They want better affordable housing and place that their children can take pride in.

“The local secondary school, Drumchapel Secondary does a great job with heroic teachers and is in demand by families outwith the immediate catchment area. I’ve represented this area for more than 15 years and have worked here as a social worker. The community involvement is incredible and people are absolutely thrilled that after two decades of discussions about what this place needs something substantial is finally happening.

“We also have a great rapport with Edrington who are regarded as very good employers here. We’re excited to include them and other vital economic stakeholders in what will be some very exciting times for Drumchapel.”

Later this week, Alex Maclean will meet with bosses at Edrington, makers of the Macallan, Highland Park and the Famous Grouse. They have around 1,000 local workers and are generally regarded as “a good and caring employer”.

It will be one of several discussions with local businesses in the coming months. There’s a sense of optimism that the announcement of the shopping centre funding package will encourage all of them to climb on board.