In 1919 Glasgow Corporation paid £10,000 for the land that became Linn Park, the city’s second-largest park, for the use of its citizens. The council’s proposed City Development Plan, now out for consultation, would allocate part of it for 150 homes, with the golf pavilion and the park’s car park marked as development sites.
The land is Green Belt and protected open space. The council’s own Green Belt Review found that this area contributes to national Green Belt objectives. Its own Open Space Strategy says the city’s golf courses remain protected open space until a review of their future is completed, and that review has never been completed. And the development plan already identifies land for around 31,490 homes against a requirement of 22,569. The case for building here has not been made.
The council now calls the site a “former golf course”, as if it were separate from the park. It is not. Until recently, the council’s own Linn Park web page listed the golf course among the park’s facilities, and the pavilion as the park’s public toilets.
None of this has been discussed with the community. The course closed in 2020; the sites were put forward by the council’s own property service; residents were first asked only when the Development Plan was finished and the only option left was to object.
Parks are not surplus property waiting for a better use. A council holds them in trust for future generations as much as for today’s residents, and once parkland is built on, it is lost for good. Glasgow’s parks were acquired with foresight for people the Corporation would never meet. Releasing them piece by piece, through site allocations rather than open decisions, would be a poor return on that foresight, and a poor example to every council under pressure to find land. The consultation closes on November 18.
Simon Parkinson, Glasgow.
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TV schedules are criminal
What is it with today's TV executives and programme makers, who seem to presume we are all hung up on crime? Can we assume the decision-makers have done due diligence and found that audiences are fixated on all this? I wonder.
A quick scan of the TV listings reveals a plethora of films and dramas dedicated to the genre, with nothing but armour-plated, Taser-carrying cops so overloaded with gear that they can hardly straddle a fence or keep up with miscreants, never mind catch them in pursuit of justice. It's enough to put that renowned crime sleuth Hercule Poirot to sleep.
Without even including the occasional Hollywood crime blockbuster of which I'm a firm favourite, the list is endless – and all the main TV channels are guilty, nay, fixated... the main culprit is Channel 5, with one evening's viewing having no fewer than five programmes of that ilk.
In one week I clocked an array of cop collections offered up for my delectation, including Blue Bloods, Police Interceptors, Highland Cops, Motorway Cops, Elite Squad, and let's not forget Forensic Murder Scene, Murder Trial, Cause of Death and that old perennial Death in Paradise. Added to that, of course, are the countless reruns of CSI and Magnum PI and more sent to us from across the pond.
Whilst a keen supporter of all our men and women (mainly, but not exclusively) in blue, I am, forensically speaking, sick of all of this 24-hour law enforcement activity, now obviously classed as entertainment.
Give me, and similarly depressed viewers, some relief from all this "catch-em-and-lock-em-up" celluloid and more of the tranquility offered by the two Michaels – Portillo and Palin – or even cruising the world with the ubiquitous Jane McDonald...our anxieties would be immediately quelled and our viewing pleasures enhanced.
NJ Hunter, Ardrossan.
Save our full stops
David Miller's letter (November 7) about punctuation certainly resonated with me. Recently, I was marking essays submitted by one of my classes and a common comment I made was that many of them were poorly punctuated. This led one young scholar to ask me, very genuinely, if I was in a bad mood when I had undertaken the marking. I told him that I had not and asked why he thought I might have been. To which he replied that I had used a lot of full stops in my comments and that this was a sign of aggression when writing.
Apparently, according to the interweb, this is a Gen Zed (I refuse to say Zee) "thang".
I know some people would like to see the apostrophe euthanised, but full stops? Thank goodness the interrobang never caught on.
Gordon Fisher, Stewarton.
Friends reunited
Alison Rowat speaks of returning to a previous hairdresser after 15 years ("Lulu, John Frieda and my sacred bond with a Glasgow hairdresser", The Herald, November 7). Well, I can beat that.
I had always wondered if the owner of Michael Rodgers Hair on Glasgow's Victoria Road could be the person of that name with whom I'd gone to primary and secondary school.
So, one day six years ago after a lunch in the Bell Jar with friends, we were making our way to the Queen's Park Cafe for a last beer. Passing the salon I saw the owner standing inside, so opened the door and asked the question. Michael looked at me and said: "I am indeed, Brendan."
And so after more than 56 years we reconnected and I have pleasure in going to spend two hours for a 10-minute haircut every six weeks.
Brendan Keenan, Glasgow.
Holier than thou?
Kevin McKenna's think-piece with biblical deprecations of common malfeasances ("So that’s why our grades are so poor. Too much Jesus in class!", The Herald, November 5) prompts me – spiritually unregenerate as I am – to reflect with some smug satisfaction that though my faults aren't to be numbered on the fingers of one hand, I can at least say truthfully that I have never been guilty of coveting my neighbour's ass.
Robin Dow, Rothesay.
Roger that
I share Ian Martin’s fear of whistling noises (Letters, November 9). However, mine cannot be attributed to the Clydebank Blitz. The roots of my fear go back to my early childhood whenever Roger Whittaker came on the radio.
Bill Lindsay, Erskine.
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