ANGELA COOKE can see her old home in Glasgow’s Red Road flats. And she can smell it too.
Because years after her high-rise was emptied and stripped bare, it is still showering dust over her new front-and-back-door terrace.
The mum of two is sick of the filth blowing off the tower blocks, six of which still stand, and the remains of two more. “It is like living in a desert,” she complains, her hand over her mouth. “The wind blows up the dust and gets everywhere, in your eyes. All our doors and windows are black.”
Ms Cooke lives on the stretch of Broomfield Road in the shadow of the Red Road scheme. Her home of three years is new but it looks out on the remains of a block pulled down two years ago and is just yards from rubble of another.
Effectively, she and other neighbours live with unlicensed landfills - the rubble is full of tyres used to dampen the blast that brought down the blocks as well as metal.
Glasgow Housing Association, which owns the flats, says it has the right to hold rubble on site under exemptions to usual rules that would make it clear the mess away.
The landlord plans to blow down the rest of the blocks this autumn and is waiting to begin a two-year clean-up operation. Vast quantities of rubble will need to be crushed and sorted. Some, when decontaminated, will stay on the site to help landscape the new Red Road. The rest will be trucked off.
Local councillor Phil Greene said: “Right now it is not nice, a terrible eyesore. But it will take two ears to remove it all and that will create its own problems with lorries moving about. GHA have decided to keep the rubble in place until they can sort the whole lot together.”
Mr Greene has been critical about the amount of time it has taken GHA to deal with the site. But he stressed that the operation was hugely complex.
David Fletcher, GHA’s director of regeneration, said: “We completely understand that, for people living nearby, this project is taking a long time and we would like to thank them for their patience and co-operation.”
He added: David Fletcher, Director for Regeneration at GHA, said: “We’ve had no complaints recently about dust from the site.
“Our contractor closely monitors dust levels and puts in place measures to deal with any issues quickly if needed.
“Any rubble on the site is being used to create protective cushioning for around the blocks during the blowdown. All environmental exemptions are in place to allow us to use this waste and it will be recycled after the demolition.”
The buildings have been covered in plastic sheeting, to try and keep dust down. And recent damp weather, say neighbours, means less grit has been blown up from the dumped rubble.
One tenant said: “It is still not very nice. Sometimes you can hardly see through your window.”
Ms Cooke’s daughter Elle is sick of having to play outside in the filthy Red Road air. “I really hope the put up a playpark up for us instead of all this dirt,” the nine-year-old said.
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