THE recent announcement that Clyde Gateway is planning a £500 million innovation masterplan for Glasgow’s east end has been welcomed by Bill Roddie, who leads Spectrum Properties and has been investing solidly in the former industrial heartland for the past 38 years.
He acknowledges Clyde Gateway is doing ‘fantastic work’ and wishes them well with the latest venture, as he has seen regeneration projects come and go in the area, from the Glasgow Eastern Area Renewal (GEAR) project in the 1980s to the Commonwealth Games investment in 2014.
Bill believes the plan to deliver a pipeline of opportunities in high-value manufacturing, R&D, sci-tech and life sciences could hit a sweet spot if handled properly.
“The east end property market is on fire at the moment,” he said from his Spectrum House HQ in Dalmarnock.
It is a market which did not provide immediately obvious attractions in 1987 when he bought his first unit at No 4 Cotton Street. Bill now owns the whole estate in Cotton Street, consisting of 27 units, as well as properties across Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirlingshire.
“Dalmarnock was a really tough place in those days,” he said. “We were broken into at least once a month. I don’t know how many times I welded plates onto doors. And then we were threatened for our efforts. They were genuinely aggrieved that we were trying to stop them from robbing us.
“I bought Strathclyde School, a derelict old building which was built in the 1880s, and turned it into my headquarters after a total refurbishment. People ask if I had a vision for the East End at that time. Perhaps I saw the potential, but the primary motivator was that I got more bang for my buck there than I would have anywhere else.
“It took tenacity, hard work and determination and, for the first 25 years, there were long days, sleepless nights and a lot of improvisation. And I never once received a penny in grant funding from any of the regeneration bodies.”
Dalmarnock once employed tens of thousands of people in its dyeworks, wireworks and steel industries, including those at Sir William Arrol & Co who built the Forth railway and road bridges.
Spectrum Properties is in the process of breathing new life into the former industrial area, investing close to £20 million in a development centred on the new Spectrum House, which is tipped to act as a magnet for further economic activity.
The company, which has saved many buildings which are part of the Glasgow’s Victorian heritage by re-purposing them for commercial use, plans total refurbishment of a series of listed buildings in French Street; new industrial units; Spectrum House; a business centre, bakery and café; and, further down the line, 90,000 sq ft of office accommodation.
Mr Roddie said Clyde Gateway has been ‘incredibly successful’, and the organisation deserved credit for the infrastructure work that it had put in place. “They have updated drainage, power networks and roads, and the railway station is a case in point,” he added. “It used to be subject to regular flooding and it was a dark and dodgy place. It is serving the area well now.
“That, and the work done for the Games in 2014, attracted quite a bit of private investment – guys like me who were prepared to put their own money up. But, as more people came into the east end, you could see that there was a momentum gathering.
“I am presently re-marshalling my resources by making several sales of properties throughout the city with the intention of re-investing it further here in Dalmarnock. My daughter, Stephanie, is now a director of the business and over the longer-term, as she acquires more and more experience, the plan is that she would eventually take over its operation.”
He has sympathy with fellow entrepreneurs Sir Tom Hunter, who said recently that he was ‘deeply worried’ about Scotland’s ‘managed decline’, and the Easdale brothers who last year slammed the ‘financially illiterate’ policies of local politicians and administrators.
Despite his reservations about process and systems, Mr Roddie believes the regeneration schemes which promise so much could be replicated in other areas of deprivation and dereliction across Scotland, given the right incentives.
“Chimney pots are the key,” he said. “You need housing if someone is to be encouraged to build a factory or offices. Then you need infrastructure, so that people can drive or cycle to their place of work. Then you need amenities – places where people can shop and relax. That is all happening at an increasing pace in the east end and if it can be successful there, it can work anywhere.”
