The last building left. But the change at Govan Docks has started

Don’t take it personally but when the filmmaker Sam Mendes was looking for a location where he could convincingly recreate a bleak, ruined landscape torn apart by conflict, a place of despair and desolation, a place without beauty or hope, he chose Glasgow, specifically the docks at Govan. And very realistic it was too: the rubble, the ruin, the mud.

But look at what’s happening now. If you saw the film – 1917 (very good, actually) – you’ll remember the old Govan pump house at the docks featured prominently because it could convincingly look like it had been bombed out during the First World War. The building dates from 1877 and was once the epicentre of Glasgow’s busy Queen’s Dock, but we know what happened next, to ship-building, to Govan. The pump house is now the only building still standing at the dry docks. Everything else: gone, taken down not by war but by change, decline, and neglect.

However, I’m down here at the docks to find out about something more positive, more hopeful: what happens next to the building. The National Lottery Heritage Fund, which is putting up £1.5million to support the plans, are showing me round the site and it’s a remarkable place, even in its current state. The roof is a skeleton, girders like bones, the walls open to the elements, but the evidence of its former use is still here: ropes and hooks, and the remnants of machinery that would once have been busy, busy but has been dormant and unused for 50 years at least.

But change is happening. In front of the building, a team of guys is laying a beautiful pathway of cobbles, all done by hand one by one, the old way, while further down towards the river, another team is working on the landscaping of what will be a small park or public area. This part of the project is paid for by Scottish Government money, £2.5m, and the idea is that when it’s finished next spring, Govan will have the beginnings of a public space that can host events or festivals for up to 2,000 people. It’s genuinely wonderful to see all this work happening in a part of Glasgow that has been so neglected for so long.

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The renovation of the pump house itself is due to get going shortly, I’m told, with a view to opening in 2027, and happily, there’s a lot of realism about what it can offer. There’s talk of a café, or something connected to the public events that might be held here, but everyone agrees it can’t just sit there and be nice: it needs to earn money. There’ll also be some 300 homes on the dock and the plans look excellent: not only have they been well-designed with more than a nod to the location and its history, they will attract new people to live in Govan and new people means – and there’s no point in being coy about this – more money.

I talk to a few locals, such as Govan councillor Ricky Bell, and he acknowledges there’s a balance to be struck between regeneration and gentrification. The site we’re standing in has been a blight on Govan for years, he says, and the development is positive, partly because it will attract new people in. “One of the problems,” he says, “is if we want to make Govan a better place for everybody, you’ve got to improve its economic standing. People say ‘why don’t we have a nice café or bar?’ but we won’t get that until we get people in with a bit more disposable income and then they’re available for everybody to use.” And here’s an exclusive for you: a new business is opening in the buildings at the Govan end of the new bridge and not just any business either: Govan is to get its first cocktail bar and if that’s not a sign of change, I don’t know what is.

I speak to some of the guys from the council who are here, looking around in their high-viz and hard hats, and it’s clear all of this is part of a bigger, well-thought out plan. Part of the problem in this part of the city has been the fact it was derelict and inaccessible and even dangerous in places, but it was also a barrier to getting around. Effectively, the river is blocked off to people from the Pacific Quay end up to the new bridge, the only route between them being Govan Road, not an attractive option at the best of times.

But what the plans for this site will do, as well as the new park, houses and pump house, is create a new way of getting round Govan. There’s talk of a bridge on the south side connecting two of the docks and a walkway on the south bank and when completed, it will mean that you could walk/cycle/run/dawdle along the river on the south side from Kinning Park right through Govan, along the south bank and up to the bridge at the Transport Museum.

Work on the park at the docks

There’s also an awareness, I’m pleased to say, that you don’t want to make the place too fancy, to poshify it up too much. You could, like other dockside projects have done, import fancy Chinese stone for the pathways and all the rest of it, but the cobbles that are being laid here have been reclaimed from the site; this is also a place where ships were born and what’s left of that story, such as the giant cleats that are dotted about the place, is being kept and worked into the plans. It’s exactly how it should be done.

Obviously, there are still many issues to be resolved in Govan – I’d love to see a future for Fairfield Farm for example, which has been shamefully neglected – but the plans for the docks are genuinely hopeful. One of the people looking round today is Deirdre Gaughan, who lives nearby and is chair of the Central Govan Action Plan. I remember her telling me once how it felt like all the power in Glasgow lies on the north side of the city, never Govan. But she tells me there’s now a genuine sense of expectation.

She also thinks this project is being done the right way. Led by the heritage, inspired by the past, working with what’s there. Such as the little pump house from 1877 that once stood in for a building on the Western Front. I’m really looking forward to the change.