MORE than 100 homes are to be built in Glasgow following the sale of an inner-city site to Wheatley Homes.
Glasgow City Council’s sale of the former car park, in the Tradeston area, to the housing association will see the build of 112 flats for mid-market rent.
The site, which occupies the entire block at Wallace Street, Cook Street, Centre Street, and Tradeston Street is less than a mile from the city centre and had been a primary school before the 1970s. It was declared surplus to council requirements in 2014 and its new use as a housing development will also generate a capital receipt to the council of around £400,000.
Councillor Ruairi Kelly, convener for housing and development at Glasgow City Council, said, “There’s been a lot of remarkable transformation along the south bank of the River Clyde in recent years, from the world-class housing in Laurieston and the Gorbals to the stunning Barclays campus. But we’ve still a lot to do to deliver on the area’s huge potential.
“Bringing over 100 new affordable homes into Tradeston will go some way to achieving that, building on the transformational momentum and taking some pressure off the demand for housing in the city. I’m delighted that a partner with the track record of Wheatley has committed to the continuing revival of the Tradeston area with new, quality homes.”
Meanwhile, the decision to approve a CPO for a neglected house in the Mount Vernon area in the east of the city is expected to widen the council’s approach to bringing vacant properties back into use.
Several thousand properties across the city have been given a new lease of life through the Empty Homes Strategy, with the vast majority of these see involving the council transferring ownership to local housing associations.
However, with some areas having very low housing association presence, the local authority said it needs other partners and models to bring such properties back to use. This CPO would see the house, which has been unoccupied since November 2024 and is considered a neighbourhood blight, marketed as a private development opportunity with a purchaser then selected to restore the home for family housing.
Councillor Kelly added, “Our empty homes strategy has brought over 3,000 properties back into use and is a great example of the creativity and flexibility of this council in finding solutions to the Housing Emergency. This pilot is about taking that further, using CPO powers to acquire vacant private housing in areas where even if there’s no housing associations to rent the properties, we can still bring them back into productive use.”
