User:Laughingnome II/sandbox

Present Day section

A lot has been added to this section and a much of it is of a definite opinion rather than being neutral. I've addeda 'neutrality disputed' template for now Identz (talk) 22:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC) Removed Section

I've just removed the big section that was added recently (pasted below). It was not written in an encyclopaedic or neutral style to begin with and then to make it worse it was commented on by new member then replied to by other member. Hopefully someone who knows the area can restore it in a neutral and appropriate style.Identz (talk) 02:18, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

This is not an encyclopaedic article. Just an article I have created as it is your democratic right to know these things.

North Lanarkshire Council, allegedly, has something of a covert economic blue print/local plan for the Gartcosh area in development since the closure of the steel works. Of relevance here, is that the long standing local councillor for Scottish Labour was deselected in 2011 and then choose to stand as an Independent Labour Councillor in the 2012 local elections. This outgoing councillor cited the infamous NLC 'local development plan' specific to Gartcosh in his campaign manifesto as an Independent Labour candidate. This in turn more than alludes to the very real conservative social barriers NLC faces in implementing heir Gartcosh development plans.

The subsequent publicly funded clean up of discovered contaminated land at the steel works allowed for the area to be designated as an Enterprise Zone. No residential development is thought possible here due to conditions attached to EU funding and still dangerous toxins to humans present in the soil. See also Great Crested Newts section below. Gartcosh has excellent travel links with the nearby M73, and its interchanges with the M74, M80 and the M8 motorways. This seem to indicate that it is as an excellent location for the production or distribution of most goods and services. Also to a slightly lesser degree its proximity to the rail network. Lately there are some controversial proposals to turn the old Glasgow City Council Kilgarth Landfill Site near to the Gartcosh Railway Junction into a 24/7 rail freight depot. This has met with much resistance from the nearby Townhead district of Coatbridge due to the expected noise pollution and concerns about toxic waste/methane gas being released into the local environment. It is no small coincidence then, that North Lanarkshire Council are trying to attract businesses into the mostly vacant Gartcosh Business Interchange / business park located at the old steel works. There are also strong rumours of a Local Plan including a road link to Glenboig, which will cross the Cumbernauld to Glasgow railway to reach the aforementioned rail freight terminal and then onwards to Coatbridge beyond. This too is controversial and is expected to either create more HGV traffic or lessen it depending on your point of view on the issue. No one can really know for sure as it is not reality yet- just more than conjecture.

On 23 March 2009 the economic rebirth of the former steel works itself became reality when work formally began there on the Scottish Crime Campus. This project is currently costed at £65 million by The Scottish Government. The future looks positive for Gartcosh.

Despite the financial crisis of 2008/09, (and the strong objections in some quarters at the time to the existing Wilson, Redrow and Dawn new home developments), it was announced recently in a 'Local Plan' that more residential housing development is planned in or near to Gartcosh, mainly by private sector house builders. North Lanarkshire Council feel this housing will be required to progress socio-economic matters in the future, if, this area is to regenerate itself from the hard recession it suffered in the 1980s. Gartcosh can once again fulfill its economic potential, as is historically well documented here above. So in order to keep moving on and build on past achievements,more housing is planned. (This is strictly speaking not accurate. North Lanarkshire Council are obliged to follow the Structure Plan which has designated 3 "Community Growth Areas", Gartcosh, South Cumbernauld and South Wishaw. These CGA's have been selected because of their proximity to rail and road links and not because of the need to regenerate the areas in which they are located- J. Waddell) Some, controversially, near to the village of Gartcosh on or near the southern shore at Johnstone Loch close by to the new Redrow development. Yet another development will be built nearby or on the stretch of both sides of the Johnstone Road close to the old Mount Ellen Golf Course Club House..(Again this is not an accurate assessment of what is proposed in the Finalised Draft Local Plan. The Plan, as it has been presented for consultation, proposes the release for development of a huge amount (427 acres) of Green Belt land, resulting in around 2,500 extra houses which is more than twice the existing number of houses. The plan proposes the release of all land surrounding Johnston Loch, with the exception of the Site of Importance for Nature Conservation to the West of the Loch- J. Waddell). The Johnstone Loch plans are probably the most contentious to 'Gartcosh Villagers' due to the urbanisation of the loch's southern shore. Despite persistent rumours that this loch is no more than an old flooded clay mine stocked up with fish in the last 30 odd years. See aerial view of loch and its perfect circle shape.(No one knows, at the moment where the housing would be located...the Plan proposes the release of all the land around the Loch, not just on the southern border, which could, given planning permission, lead to development on all parts of the released area - J. Waddell) Some rightly cite that some of this land is a winter feeding ground to migrant Canadian Snow Geese (This, at least is accurate-J. Waddell). However the local fishing club met with little or no resistance when it built on the self same land. (Again inaccurate. The local fishing club have two garage sized buildings on the Northern shore which have been there for many years. To suggest that a couple of boat houses and a large scale housing development should be of similar concern is, quite frankly, ridiculous - J. Waddell) There is then, understandable concern here about the loss of a natural habitat for migrant geese. Even despite the recent hysterical leafleting campaign (mainly from long standing residents of the village), that Gartcosh will somehow become part of a Muirhead, Mount Ellen, Glenboig conurbation and therefore lose its identity as a village. This idea is met with bemusement by many newer residents of and watchers of the Gartcosh scene (can only surmise that these newer residents and watchers of the Gartcosh scene have not familiarised themselves with the proposals in the FDLP- J. Waddell), who feel that some of these Villagers' just don't or ever did want social change or progress, improvements in their quality of life, or otherwise. (Fail to see how tripling the size of the village with the attendant extra traffic etc. will lead to progress or improvement in the quality of life of the villagers. Many villagers choose to live in Gartcosh because of its semi-rural nature and the visual amenity of the Johnston Loch area plays a significant role in that identity. The proposals in the FDLP would lead to the loss of that semi-rural identity - J. Waddell) Historically since the closure of British Steel's Gartcosh Works, a siege mentality, (as displayed here by J. Waddell), exists amongst some inhabitants not unlike that in estranged former UK mining community enclaves. This minorities reasoning employed against the 'Local Plan' is also very questionable, Canadian Snow Geese aside. The status quo of heavy industry having no longer been an option since the 1980s here too. After all Gartcosh is an area that bears the scars of past clay brick mine workings, and the tidied up wasteland of a former steel works site to boot. Those pockets of outstanding natural beauty that do exist in Gartcosh, being perhaps limited only to; the Bluebell Woods and its Duck Walk/Garnqueen Loop Walkways; the Bothlin Burn now mostly culverted before surfacing again inside the Duck Walk; a few ponds where rare newts breed; and; the jewel in the crown, their strangely neglected up to date (does every area of natural beauty have to be "developed"-J. Waddell), potential leisure facility, and private fishing club water that is Johnstone Loch. Other than all this, plenty of man made brownfield post industrial wasteland sites, complete with electric pylons remain for all to see in the surrounding 'countryside' of Gartcosh. It is obviously possible to develop here and retain all the main areas of natural interest (just what the Community Council proposes- J. Waddell). Indeed that is what will probably happen in the future if North Lanarkshire Council have any say. Cynical Glasgow 'overspill' Council Tax Revenue considerations by the council aside; and; treating those locals living in the past with due respect (but not their views on how the community in which they live should develop obviously-J. Waddell); All in all Gartcosh has got to be changing for the better (in your view-who are you anyway?-J. Waddell). I/we are the future of Gartcosh not its self appointed Community Council which has more pressing issues to concern itself with like 'no where to go for teenagers etc' rather than socially prejudiced bilge.

The fly in the ointment is schooling. What is required now is bigger public school premises either at the existing site or nearby. School provision has to be the No.1 priority for most with children of age living in Gartcosh right now (I presume that children of school age currently living in the area are already attending school, so am not sure why school provision should be of such overriding concern-J. Waddell).The muted plan for the mainly Presbyterian Christian in outlook Gartcosh Primary to merge with the Roman Catholic orientated St Barbara's is universally unpopular with parents for a host of religious and secular personal reasons- if not the politicians. The Kirkintilloch Herald has run a number of features recently.(on what evidence do you base this assumption. Not all people are against the integration of schools- J. Waddell.)It is seen, on both sides, as a council driven cost cutting experiment in political correctness and worst still as a gradual loss of cultural identity to those more inclined to en-roll at Gartcosh Primary both secular and non-secular. The prototype for all this already exists in the nearby village of Glenboig. Suffice to say when the Church owns the land,then unsurprisingly they tend also to own the school both morally and spiritually. Integration on those terms is obviously purely cosmetic. Remember too, Gartcosh is a village founded on strong Protestant Christian Presbyterian beliefs. So the loss to the village of its public school gives cause for real concern in those quarters and non-Roman Catholics alike. Given what has happened in nearby Glenboig, complete with its one entrance campus to two separate schools 'a school within a school' is only to save council running costs etc, then people are naturally concerned about freedom of choice. Where Or Whereabouts Of Gartcosh As A Settlement

Gartcosh has had something of a nomad existence as a settlement and actually encompasses a greater area than many present day 'revisionist' villagers would have some believe and so all naive incomers realise. To be fair though this is partly only ignorance on the part of those villagers who espouse such views, and so, lazily came to believe what they have wanted too rather than the actual real history of the area. For 30 years or so, until recently, the centre of Gartcosh village life was to be found down at Senga's (McAloney's) village shop by the Church. Gartcosh is a much older and greater settlement than that. For the non-deluded, roughly speaking, modern industrial Gartcosh's southern boundary has historically began just outside the Glasgow city boundary, near the old Russell Yard, now the entrance to the Redrow development and has headed out east through the fields, approximately near the whereabouts of where the Bothlin burn rises out from the Bishop Loch in those self same fields across from the Redrow development. It then ran slightly north, north east of Chapman's pub, probably along the now M73 stretch of the now culverted Bothlin Burn (no Coatbridge Road or water pumping station back then!) and finally ran up the railway line to the Kingshill cottages, the former site of the old pig farm. It then crosses the railway line at some point around Gartcosh Junction here running along the rail lines northern edge by encompassing the old steel works and new business enterprise park eventually running all the way up to Garnqueen Hill and Garnqueen Burn. The northern boundary is marked at the top of the hill at Lochend Road near Gartcosh House and heads east from there roughly following the route of Johnston Road again until it reaches the Glenboig road and bend at Marnock. This busy stretch of the B804 Johnston Road junction with Glenboig Road located at the small smart hamlet of Croftfoot across from the Marnoch scheme is the northen most distant point of Gartcosh. Greater Gartcosh might be more apt here, but Gartcosh it still all is.

So it is in fact all a myth built upon an agenda of inverted snobbery, (by some themselves just late 1980's incomers taking advantage of redundant steel workers now cheap properties), or plain ignorance, that the village runs north to south down Lochend Road from Mount Ellen and the new Coatbridge Road by-pass all the way down to the Chapmans pub. To be pedantic the true historical centre of the village was actually further south in Lochend Road near the pedestrian entrance to the train station and the blue bridge over the M73. Gartcosh lies and takes in a fair swathe of land running diagonally from the Bothlin Burn north, north east, or from the B804 Glenboig Road at Croftfoot, a south, south west lineage, depending on your starting point, and as described above.

Both the Redrow and the Wilson estates are geographically and historically as much a part of Gartcosh (greater), as the village Church is. Or even the newly finished crime campus is for that matter. Gartcosh has certainly had a nomad existence for sure.

Great Crested Newts

Gartcosh is said to contain and be home to the largest population of Great Crested Newts in Scotland. This newt is a protected species and it is illegal in any way to disturb them or their habitat. This is a problem for the NLC Gartcosh development plan, because the brownfield site which the former Gartcosh works occupies is just exactly the kind of habitat that the Great Crested Newt favours. The newts are nocturnal and so hard to see. During the day they are either hidden under boulders etc or stay in fresh water pools. So you are lucky if you spot one. One at least was seen dead on the road back in the Spring of 2008.

Newt fencing is to be found all over the small swamp and field across from the Gartcosh station car park. Amphibian tunnels exist under the road here between an attractive pool and tree glade- a leftover from the old Bothlin Burn. This is all adjacent to the station car park across from the swamp field. A few miles of concrete knee high amphibian walls also exists all over the Gartcosh Nature Reserve and around the former steel works brownfield sites. As of September 2012 the newt fencing activity has markedly increased. The newts appear to be being relocated before this brownfield swamp site undergoes development. This contradicts earlier claims by Scottish Enterprise sources that this field and the larger one next door would become part of the Gartcosh Nature Reserve. Field drain construction has already taken place in the bigger field next door, which is separated from the smaller swampy field by an 'amphibian wall' of dark concrete. Great Crested Newt relocation is going on here too.

The newts may have to make way as a another new road is mooted and possibly expansion of the railway station car park. By law any Great Crested Newts must be safely re-homed first before any works commence. So something is planned.

Trivia

It should be noted that Glasgow (especially the Bellshill and Coatbridge areas of Greater Glasgow) have long had large Catholic and Jewish Lithuanian populations. The Republic of Ireland, which has traditionally strong connections with the largest town next to Gartcosh, being Coatbridge, probably has the highest concentration of Lithuanians relative to its total population size in Western Europe; its estimated 45,000 Lithuanians (about half of whom are registered) form over 1% of Ireland’s total population. Ethno-religious links between all Lithuanian communities, can be strong. This is tempered with other secular influences today in both public life and the community as it is, through for instance, various permutations of intermarriage between persons of Lithuanian ancestry.