Glasgow City Council is set to make a decision on the redevelopment of the former Glasgow Herald Building at 200 Renfield Street in the city today, with the council expected to approve plans to redevelop the site of the former newspaper office into a 20-storey high development offering student flats and co-living homes.
The building was also the erstwhile home of The National and the Glasgow Times.
Demolition work began at the site earlier this year, although permission for the next stage of the building’s life is yet to be granted, although Glasgow City Council planners are recommending the plan is approved.
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According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the application has sparked nine objections and attracted five letters of support.
Concerns raised by objectors included a reduction in privacy for neighbours, increased wind impacts and over provision of student accommodation in the area.
Letters of support countered that the plan will help with repopulation of the area and stimulate economic activity.
A report from the council stated: “The application site is located within an area undergoing positive change, representing an opportunity to bring a vacant site back into productive use and contribute to the re-population of the city centre.
“The proposed student accommodation and co-living development will deliver high-quality residential buildings with shared amenity spaces and provide significantly improved public realm to the locality through the ‘Arts Square’ and the re-imagined lane network.
“The scheme respects the site’s context in a prominent city centre location and addresses environmental constraints through careful design.”
The Glasgow Herald, the longest running daily newspaper in the world, was founded somewhat ironically by Edinburgh native printer John Mennons in January 1783 as the Glasgow Advertiser. It vacated its central Renfield Street HQ in 2020 as part of a cost-cutting drive and is now based in new offices at 125 Fullarton Drive, roughly seven miles away. Its sister paper the Glasgow Times was founded almost 100 years later in 1876 and has also moved to the new office along with te pro-Scottish Independence National, which is a somewhat more recent affair having first published in 2014. All three papers are published by Newquest.
Thomas Nugent / Creative Commons / geograph.co.uk
