A LONG-established optician's practice on Glasgow’s south side has been taken over by expanding Scottish independent chain Urquhart.
The addition of Burnside McPhee at Clarkston takes Urquhart Opticians total number of practices to 12.
Urquhart noted that the move follows the retirement of John Burnside, who is stepping down after 35 years at the practice. It added that Burnside McPhee team members Mary Jeffrey and Lorraine Allan are being retained, taking the total number of Urquhart employees to 48.
Urquhart said Ms Jeffrey and Ms Allan would be joined by Andrew Mostyn, who has been with Urquhart Opticians for nearly three years and was previously with Black & Lizars at Fenwick Road in Giffnock.
READ MORE: Airport chief: 'Hugely powerful' Glasgow not punching its weight
It added: “Andrew lives locally to the practice, in Netherlee.”
Urquhart, which has practices in Ayrshire and Dumfries & Galloway, said it was continuing its expansion programme “along the west coast of Scotland with a focus on market and coastal towns”.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Braverman's terrifying speech confirms simple truths
Managing director Peter Telfer said: “We’re excited to be expanding in Clarkston and looking forward to getting to know the patients and becoming part of the community. It is our first move back into Glasgow, having previously had a practice on Dumbarton Road up until 2015.
READ MORE: Airport chief: 'Hugely powerful' Glasgow not punching its weight
“We’re planning on refitting the practice by the end of the year and introducing a range of new equipment and frames - that will reflect the clinical offering across all of our practices.”
Urquhart Opticians was founded by Robert Urquhart in 1916, with its first practice at Dreghorn in Ayrshire. Mr Telfer took over in 2015, alongside long-time friend and clinical director Alistair Duff.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here