Is gentrification coming for The Barras?

As an illustrator with a penchant for cityscapes and architecture, Liz spends most of her time documenting the urban landscape through plein air sketching. Though she has drawn Glasgow landmarks like the People’s Palace and the Winter Gardens countless times, it’s the “grungy corners” that fascinate her the most.

The places dotted with wheelie bins, the alleyways, and architecture with buddleia sprouting from its crevices. “I even quite like Heras fencing,” she says. The Barras and its wider surroundings are filled with inspiration. “I really like the interest of where the old bits and the new bits are juxtaposed,” she says.

Artist Liz Reid pictured on Suffolk Street at The Barras. (Image: Colin Mearns) Artist Liz Reid pictured in her studio. (Image: Colin Mearns) (Image: Colin Mearns) The Barrowland Ballroom and the sprawling Barras Market below have for more than a century been the place to experience the true essence of Glaswegian life.

Music, dancing, drinking, a wee bargain. Gritty, but always full of surprises and never to be underestimated. It has had its ups and downs over the years, but projects to improve the surrounding area are gathering pace, and young, hip traders are building a presence within. Can ‘The World Famous Barras Market’ maintain its identity while keeping up with the times?

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“I don’t see it as being gentrification,” Liz says. “I see it as a renaissance.”

Liz says the gentrification accusation comes from the wave of artists and makers popping up in the market, rather than just the “old-style” stalls. But it wouldn’t survive without adapting. “You’ve got to change your ways or die,” she says.

Born in Paisley, Liz returned to Glasgow in the nineties after attending art school in Dundee. The Barras was a “pretty sad place” then, somewhere you would go to at the weekends to pick up second-hand clothes or pirated discs.

But these days, the market is hitting a nice balance, she says. You can still rummage through “all sorts of old junk”. There are antiques, places to get nice teacups or vintage clothes, James Bond posters or batteries for your smoke detector.

“It’s a really good mix between the new things, but it hasn’t taken away the character, which I think is still very much the same,” she says. Plus, there is mutual respect between the new and old traders.

There may be trendy coffee shops popping up, like Thomson’s Coffee or Outlier down the road, but Liz points out that they are still independent. “It’s not big chains like Starbucks or Costa,” she says.

She thinks having these outlets is inspiring people to venture further east from the city centre. More foot traffic means more trade. Plus, it makes it feel like a safer area to live and work in.

Chris Butler, manager of Barras Market, says this area of the East End has lain dormant for a long period of time. It’s only now that people are starting to realise this area, with its proximity to the city centre, is an “untapped commodity”. But could that trigger gentrification?

“I would never use that word,” Chris says.

Bars in and around the Gallowgate that were once Celtic pubs or associated “with some kind of rogue element” 15 to 20 years ago have been transformed.

“They’re now bars where you can take your dog, take your family, have a meal,” he says. “I don’t think it’s gentrification, I think people are actually just realising what they’ve got on their own doorstep and a lot of businesses are seeing that potential.”

He uses The Gate as an example. The cocktail bar is frequently cited as one of the best in the UK, but when owner Andy Gemmell launched in 2019, Chris says people told him he was nuts to open in the Gallowgate. To this day, you are lucky to find a seat in the bar most nights of the week.

Walking east from Glasgow’s city centre along the Gallowgate, the change is impossible to ignore. An area once plagued by the reputation for having a worse life expectancy than a war-torn Iraq, the Calton has seen a surge of urban regeneration in the last 13 years.

Pale beige brick apartment buildings peek out from behind the original tenements as previously derelict land is reborn under various projects, like the Calton Area Development Framework, Calton-Barras five-year Action Plan, and the Collegelands Calton Barras (CCB) project.

Calton Village (Image: Supplied) What is happening around The Barras, also classified as Glasgow’s ‘Inner East’, is regeneration rather than gentrification, a senior council official says. The difference between the changes here and, say, somewhere like Tower Hamlets in London, is that most of the new housing is cropping up in collaboration with housing associations.

Many of the new apartments are considered “affordable”, with “social” or “mid-market” rents. Developments like Little Dovehill and Calton Village are filling in the gaps. Rather than coming down from above and opposing development in the area, the council sees their efforts more as taking away barriers and assisting growth.

While the efforts are by no means complete, the area has come a long way since 2012. In the run-up to the 2016 Commonwealth Games, work was done to improve the public realm in what was considered a ‘gateway to the East End’.

Glasgow City Council took responsibility for the areas that urban regeneration company Clyde Gateway did not take on, and the Development Deficit Grant Scheme helped venues like Barras Art and Design (BAaD) and Saint Luke’s get off the ground.

The next big project will be the large-scale redevelopment of the historic Meat Market on Duke Street, thanks to a £4.48 million City Deal grant. Meanwhile, a £95 million private development at Collegelands has also been given the go-ahead.

It will see an 11-storey student accommodation block and 147 build-to-rent flats spring up at Hunter Street. The streetscape connecting Central Station to Glasgow Cross is also set to be revamped as part of the wider Avenues Project.

“There has been a tremendous amount of regeneration in Glasgow’s ‘Inner East’ in recent years, led by the investment in and around the Barras – which we saw as the gateway between the city centre and the East End,” says Councillor Ruairi Kelly, Convener for Housing, Development, Built Heritage and Land Use at [[Glasgow City Council]].

“This regeneration has brought not only new venues, businesses and public realm in and around the Barras, but a significant amount of new housing and investment in the wider area.”

Key developments, including the Meat Market, Bellgrove, Tureen Street, Collegelands and the Avenues Plus project at Duke Street and John Knox Street, will continue the area’s transformation, he says.

Plans for the Barrowland sign. (Image: SYSCO) Barras Market itself, steeped in nostalgia for Glaswegians, young and old, has seen its own regeneration. There are even plans to erect a huge LED screen to the right of the iconic Barrowland sign to “enhance and develop the building for the future” with modern technology, according to planning documents submitted by the owners, Margaret McIver Ltd.

Chris says the area is nothing like when he worked at the Barrowland Ballroom 30 years ago. “It’s a totally different place.”

The pandemic was a historic low for the market, but there is a new kind of optimism, he says. It has become a jumping-off point for new independent merchants and makers, a place to test the waters before taking the plunge and opening up a shopfront somewhere in the city. “It’s a really good launching pad,” says Chris. “And the new traders can learn a lot from the guys who have been here for 30, 40 years.”

Chris adds that the older traders are more “clued in” than people give them credit for. And being able to browse Labubus and bric-a-brac side by side has added a whole new texture to the market hall.

“These guys that have been with us all these years, they grow with us,” he says. “They aren’t dinosaurs; they have moved with the times. Week on week, when these older traders see what's going on in the market, with the young people. They’re probably more hip and aware of trends and what’s happening out with The Barras than us.”

While it still has the “oldy-worldy market feel”, Barrowlands is a massive brand these days, Chris adds. It has also created an atmosphere that encourages families and visitors to spend an entire day at the market – eating street food and browsing stalls for hours, rather than just popping in to grab a bag of whelks.

“We want people to come down and feel that element of excitement when they come down here, to expect the unexpected. That was the way it was with The Barras years ago, and hopefully that’s the way we have become now.”

As someone who captures Glasgow’s ever-changing urban landscape, is there anything particular she finds herself gravitating towards time and again to capture? She says her favourite subject to draw is the Barrowland neon sign. “I like it better in the daytime when it’s not illuminated because you can see all the rusty wires and tubes of the neon and all the stars,” she says. “It totally is so iconic.”

How does she feel about the plans to revamp the sign? Liz gives a careful smile after a short pause, suggesting she would rather not say.

Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am each morning, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1