In yet another example of the disgraceful way Glasgow City Council operates, we see Labour Councillors paying off their chums from regeneration budgets while those they have displaced or evicted are ignored. The Sunday Herald reported yesterday that Ronnie Saez, pals with Frank McAveety, Labour MSP, and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Glasgow East Regeneration Agency, had been made redundant with a payoff of £500,000 approved by City Councillors Catherine McMaster, George Redmond and James Coleman.

Ronnie Saez

James Coleman

That’s the same George Redmond who told Margaret Jaconelli and her family to ‘take it on the chin’ when she was brutally evicted so developers can profit from the Athlete’s Village. She still has received no compensation. Oh, and yes it’s the same James Coleman who promised users and carers of The Accord Centre a brand new purpose built facility as a legacy of Glasgow 2014 … but then somehow the £200k they were promised wasn’t there anymore.

Budget cuts, apparently.

Fortunately for Ronnie, budget cuts don’t apply to mates, so he’s sitting pretty.

Allow us to remind you of other Council pals who have had their pockets lined by our elected representatives. First, there’s Mr Graham Duffy, the failed businessman who attempted to take over Rangers Football Club back in 2009. Duffy owned Grantly Developments (Parkhead) who had been holding onto derelict land on Millerfield Road in Dalmarnock since 1988. Once the area was named the site for the Athlete’s Village, Duffy brokered a £5.5 million deal with the Council for the land – a staggering 12,000% increase in the land value since it’s original purchase.

Graham Duffy

Then there’s Allan Stewart and Steve McKenna, Labour party donors, who built a property empire together, one arm of which was called Stewart and McKenna Ltd and went bust in 2010 owing a massive tax bill. Stewart & McKenna Ltd had also bought property in Dalmarnock in 2006 for £1.6 million, just over the road from Mrs Jaconelli and her family. When the Athlete’s Village was announced for the site, Council paid them £1 for the land, plus a £1.7m amount and then ‘gifted’ them another valuable parcel of land around the corner. Oh, and Steven Purcell took a position on their charity foundation, too.

Another deal saw former Rangers owner David Murray’s company paid £5.1m for land it bought for £375,000 a few years before.

David Murray

And finally there’s Charles Price, owner of the subsidiary company Springfield Properties No. 1 Ltd. Price bought property along Springfield Road in 2005-2006 for an amount believed to be around £8million, and then sold it to the Council for £17,000,000 in 2008. Council’s payment represented a 409% increase in the value of the land since Price’s 2005 purchase. Price was paid around £1m over the valuation price recommended by independent valuers to Council. Some of these deals, plus others, are now being investigated by Strathclyde Police as reported by the BBC.

As we know from the case of the Jaconelli family and the local shopowners who have all been forced out through the brutal use of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO’s), the Council has powers of compulsory purchase. these powers are allegedly designed to protect the public purse, and could be used to drastically limit costs in all the cases above. However, in these cases they managed to ‘come to an agreement’ (a very expensive one for taxpayers). Once again, the evidence is clear, the Council take care of their pals, but ignore and victimise local people.

Documentation of the Whose Legacy Discussion that took place at the CCA as part of the Document 9 Human Rights Film Festival. The first two parts feature Neil Gray and Libby Porter discussing the Legacy of Mega-Events, and large-scale urban regeneration plans in the UK and worldwide.

 

 

The discussion was followed by a screening of Ardenlea St (from Hope, Memories, Loss & Community). Chris Leslie. 14.21 mins. 2011

After the film screening carers from the Save the Accord centre, who are campaigning to retain a day care centre for people with learning disabilities, and Margaret Jaconelli spoke about the impact the Commonwealth Games development is having upon their lives.

 

 

 

The 'Golden Tenement'

The ‘Golden Tenement’ art project will investigate urban regeneration and displacement in Dalmarnock. A collaboration between graphic designer Neil McGuire and jeweller/goldsmith Marianne Anderson, the project will investigate urban regeneration and displacement by exploring how ideas of a city and a nation are perpetuated through mega-events such as the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.

The Golden tenement project refers to Margaret Jaconelli’s tenement home in Dalmarnock. Mrs Jaconelli and her family were the last residents to be evicted from their Dalmarnock homes (by over 100 police officers) so that land could be cleared for the Commonwealth Games. The Golden Tenement tells the story of Mrs Jaconelli’s eviction, comparing her treatment to that of Willie Haughey, owner of City Refrigeration. While Mrs Jaconelli still awaits any payment at all from the City Council, Haughey, (a good friend of former City Leader, Steven Purcell, key member of ‘Team Glasgow’, and the largest Scottish donor to the Labour Party), received a huge sum for a plot of land in Rutherglen from Clyde Gateway Developments, an arms-length external organisation (ALEO) run by Purcell’s former political advisor, Iain Manson. So much for ‘Legacy’ – it seems there is one rule for the rich and connected and another one for the poor.

The real thing: demolished tenement, Dalmarnock

The project will mass produce, low cost, replica Golden Tenements (just like Mrs Jaconelli’s home in Dalmarnock) to be sold as souvenirs outside sporting grounds as part of the Creative Scotland initiated ‘Scotland Can Make It!’ retail plan in 2014. These replica’s will connect the games (as it happens) to Mrs Jaconelli’s story and other stories of displacement through regeneration. Profits from the sale of the Golden Tenements will be used to fund the creation of a single gold casting of a Dalmarnock tenement.The  Golden Tenement will in turn be donated to a community-based East-end charity.

Glasgow Games Monitor 2104 will be following this story with Neil and Marianne. We think it effectively and ironically exposes the hypocrisy around the Games Legacy, and intend to support the artists in their attempt to keep up the publicity around the negative aspects of the Commonwealth Games that the City Council and Scottish Government would prefer you didn’t see.

Jaconelli family and friends resisting eviction

Satire par excellence in this episode of Rab C Nesbitt. Could the leader of the Council in Rab’s Glasgow be some kind of fictional amalgam of councillors Matheson and Purcell?

Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council, has claimed the 2014 Commonwealth Games will deliver a “sea-change generational improvement” in health inequalities and access to sport.

With just under 1,000 days to go, an urban studies expert has warned there may be no significant legacy from Glasgow 2014.

Dr Libby Porter, Glasgow University Centre for Urban Studies [Glasgow Games Monitor 2014], and Dr Adam Brown, former research fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University, have warned the ‘legacy’ of 2014 may not materialise.

View BBC clip here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15527880

Tenants, residents and workers gathered outside the offices of Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) today, 01.11.11, to demand a full independent investigation into the extent of asbestos in GHA properties. The GHA were forced to close their offices for the duration of the demonstration.

In a demonstration organised by the Glasgow Home Owners (GHO) group and the Scottish Tenants Organisation (STO), GHA were condemned for failing to provide adequate information about asbestos in their buildings and exposing tenants, residents (home-owners) and workers to the deadly airborne disease. Six people (two tenants, two residents and two workers) are currently preparing legal actions regarding exposure to asbestos in GHA properties.

 Fears were expressed about widespread exposure to asbestos in GHA properties across the city – potentially involving tens of thousands of people. After Housing Stock Transfer in 2003, Glasgow City Council transferred 83,000 homes to Glasgow Housing Association ownership, the largest transfer in the UK.  After a massive demolition programme, and second-stage transfer to smaller Housing associations, GHA now retains 60,000 homes.

Sean Clerkin, Chair of the Glasgow Home Owners group, said the group were demanding an independent investigation into all major works on GHA properties since 2005. He said they were also demanding the immediate release of the Babcock Scientific Survey (2006-2009), which did a sample survey on 8,000 GHA properties, and which he said had since been “hidden” by GHA. The group are demanding that GHA informs all tenants in a clear and transparent manner about the locations and danger associated with asbestos in GHA properties.

As the Herald recently reported, The Glasgow Housing Association Inspection Report carried out in 2007 by the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) said GHA, “had not fully assessed asbestos risk as it has not identified the condition or types of asbestos present in all of its common areas … In summary, GHA does not meet its statutory and regulatory requirements on gas safety and managing asbestos, and this is a major weakness”.

The European Union has banned all use of asbestos and the extraction, manufacture and processing of asbestos products. Most asbestos fibres are invisible to the human eye. Asbestosis, the most common disease associated with exposure to asbestos, is caused by inhalation of fibres over a period of time. This is especially a problem when asbestos is disturbed.

Posters and Banners in the demonstration pointed to the personal exposure of tenants, residents and workers to asbestos. Some contractors employed by GHA to carry out a massive renovations programme stood accused of “cutting corners” and failing to follow safety procedures. All kitchens and bathrooms in GHA properties are due to be refitted, with much of the work already done, meaning that many may have been exposed to deadly asbestos unknowingly.

Mr.Mcpherson, a member of the Glasgow Home Owners group from Pollock, and former campaigner with Clydeside Action on Asbestos, said that he had ”grim experience” of losing family and friends to asbestos. “No-one can dispute the effects of asbestos…Glasgow Housing Association [GHA] must know about the extent of the asbestos problem they inherited from Glasgow City Council [GCC]…tenants must be informed of asbestos problems by GHA as a matter of urgency”.

Mr.Moore, also from Glasgow Home Owners group and Pollock, said his GHA building was “riddled” with asbestos. Mr.Moore had also seen friends pass away due to the” invisible illness”, asbestos. “That’s why I’m here”, he said, “in solidarity”. He said that GHA had never informed tenants about asbestos in his building, and related a story about a joiner who did some work in his home with a mask to protect himself from asbestos while Mr.Moore himself went without one in his own home – with no information from GHA.

These kinds of problems should have been eradicated in the dim and distant past. The health problems associated with asbestos are by now notorious. GHA have a duty to reveal the extent of asbestos in its properties to tenants and residents, and this should be met immediately.

 

GLASGOWGAMES MONITOR 2014 EVENT

As part of Document 9: International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival

Friday 21st October, 2-30-4.30. Clubroom, Upstairs at The Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA),350 Sauchiehall Street,GlasgowG2 3JD

The Commonwealth Games 2014: Whose Legacy?

Short introductory talk by Dr Libby Porter (Urban Planner and Researcher, Glasgow Uni) and Neil Gray (Writer and Researcher, Glasgow Uni) about the Legacy of Mega-Events, and large-scale urban regeneration plans in theUKand worldwide.

A discussion will follow with a series of live accounts by residents – including carers from the Save the Accord centre, who are campaigning to retain a day care centre for people with learning disabilities, and Margaret Jaconelli, who has recently been evicted from her home. The residents will talk about about the impact the Commonwealth Games development is having upon their lives.

This discussion, focusing on media portrayal and the right of residents to ‘stay put’ in the face of large-scale urban transformation and displacement, will be interspersed with a series of short films that highlight recent experiences on, and nearby, the site of the Commonwealth Games Village.

Includes special screening of a short film about Margaret Jaconelli and the forthcoming Commonwealth Games by Glasgow documentary photographer and filmmaker, Chris Leslie (14 mins).

whose_legacy_poster_design-1

PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY

http://gamesmonitor2014.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-the-Accord-centre/192446497459688

www.chrisleslie.com

http://documentfilmfestival.org/

 

Radio interview with carers campaigning to Save the Accord centre on Sunny Govan FM.

 

Grace Harrigan speaks to the crowd after the Accord Centre march on Saturday the 27th of August