'Our parks have been allowed to decay in the name of biodiversity'

“They say it’s about creating corridors for wildlife. That’s not creating corridors; that’s leaving the place to look like a toilet. Our guys who come to cut the grass now don't know what to cut.” I move closer to inspect the biodiversity on this patch of overgrown grass. There is a single thistle; a gathering of wee yellow flowers and the beginnings of a bed of hogweed.

“Other councils are doing it right, whereas Glasgow is doing it wrong,” says Mr McArthur. “This is about saving money. It’s nothing to do with biodiversity. If they were doing biodiversity seriously they’d have to employ more people to manage it properly by digging out some species which threaten to overrun the others.”

John McArthur (Image: staff)

His concerns at what he describes as the abandonment of Glasgow’s parks seems borne out by Keep Scotland Beautiful’s latest Green Flag awards. Aberdeen and Dundee have eight each while Edinburgh has 35. Glasgow, the dear green place with around 40 parks, was given just one.

John McArthur believes there is a class element to Glasgow City Council’s manifest failure to maintain parks in the city’s less affluent neighbourhoods. He cites the way that The Botanics in Glasgow’s anointed west end are maintained.

“The Botanics have six gardeners and seven in the glasshouses helping maintaining this affluent area to a very high standard. They’re like a bowling green. Whereas in places like Pollok they only react when they’re notified. All the ‘Friends of’ groups receive resources and funding that should be redirected to the parks operations.

“The people of Glasgow own this park. Our management and council have a responsibility for what happens in them. But they’re handing over responsibility to these volunteer groups of enthusiastic amateurs and training them up to dig stuff out the park. But that’s our job. It’s madness.”

He paints a picture of an unregulated free-for-all for well-meaning, middle-class people with lots of time on their hands but little appreciation of the work that’s required and the jobs involved in maintaining the city’s parks – especially in working-class areas. “The volunteers are putting people out of jobs,” he says.

At its core is a need to make drastic savings, and working-class areas are bearing the brunt. The GMB Union says that in 1992 Glasgow had around 1800 staff working in Glasgow’s parks. By 2007, this had been cut to 1000. Now there are around 160 staff left. In a four-on, four-off shift pattern this means that only 80 workers are left to maintain the city’s vast areas of parkland.

There are also serious health implications stemming from the neglect of the city’s parks. As we walk through Househill Park, large clumps of Hogweed are evident. When these are exposed to direct sunlight they burn your skin, causing painful blistering. Mr McArthur says Hogweed is present throughout the city’s parks.

“It's exploded because the grass isn't being cut often enough, and especially next to waterways. Management know about this but have chosen to do nothing about it. It’s become so prevalent that our workers are unable to strim them because of health and safety fears.

“These unkempt areas are also breeding grounds for ticks that carry lime disease. They’re also where dog-shit gets thrown and gets easily concealed: out of sight; out of mind.”

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He cites an incident in Auldhouse the previous week when a child ran through a clump of hogweed and got serious blisters on their skin. “The council’s idea of dealing with it is to send someone out to chemical spray it.”

In early August in the last days of the school holidays this park should be hoaching with children and families. Today, in an hour-long tour of the park we encounter a mere handful of people. As we enter the park we cross a bridge over the Levern Water. This should be a beauty spot, but today the banks are disfigured by industrial detritus and household waste which park-workers would once regularly have winched out.

A plastic traffic barrier lies half in half out and there are traffic cones. There’s a fence line in amongst the undergrowth somewhere. At one point, Mr McArthur counsels me not to venture any further towards the water. “There’s a steep bank right in front of you, but you won’t notice it because the grass has been allowed to grow so tall.” He points to where there should be a petrified tree which had been an attractive natural landmark. This has now disappeared from view underneath the thick foliage.

The citizens of the west end simply wouldn’t accept any of this in the walkways around Kelvingrove Park. Glasgow City Council know they won't get as many complaints in a place like Pollok. “They don't record anything as a complaint if it's somewhere like Househill Park,” he says. “They’ll send a few workers down to carry out a temporary clean and then it goes back to shit.”

He points to a small and relatively well-maintained expanse of grass amidst the verdant chaos. This patch is maintained by an elderly volunteer who does it off his own back but who’ll probably soon need to give it up. Do volunteers in places like this get similar funding as the groups in posher areas, I ask him. “What do you think,” he says.

The residential streets that surround Househill Park would once have cherished it but its decay has rendered parts of it unsafe for children. They simply can’t see what's underneath their feet when they’re running through the grass.

There’s something bleak and haunting when you happen upon a soft-play area utterly devoid of children. Househill Park has two of them which should be alive with kids and their tiny dramas. The pathways to these two are overgrown and rubbish has begun to gather. Soon, the self-seeding plants will annexe these areas and the paths will disappear entirely.

Before long, we come across large patches of grass which have become fly-tipping dumping grounds. An abandoned wheelie bin seems to act as a marker, signalling where you can dump your waste undetected. When people realise that the council has abandoned these places some of them follow suit.

Rubbish can quickly reclaim unkempt parks (Image: staff)

There are also patches of green waste, a consequence of the council’s arbitrary £50 charge on emptying brown bins. Here and there where once there had been access to the burn there are only glimpses of a metal fence gathering rubbish. In several places, the Levern Water is entirely hidden from view.

There had been two football pitches here where I once played amateur fixtures. Now, only one remains and that’s barely fit for purpose. On Househill Park’s perimeter, running alongside Crookston Road, weeds and rubbish are reclaiming the pavement. Perversely, the central reservation on the dual carriageway looks like it gets cut more often than the parkland.

“Glasgow is known as The Dear Green Place for a reason but that heritage of well-maintained and well-used parks is in tatters,” says Mr McArthur. “Increasing biodiversity has become a convenient excuse for cutting routine maintenance and planting. A city’s parks are not a statutory service and an easy target for cuts but well-kept green spaces are every bit as important as clean streets to Glaswegians and visitors."

In prolonged periods of austerity, working-class neighbourhoods are disproportionately punished by cuts. These parks are among the few free resources still available to them. The sense of abandonment you feel as you walk through Househill Park seems an apt metaphor representing the marginalising of the communities that gather around them.

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “In line with national guidance and local authorities, our approach to ground maintenance has changed as we respond to the challenge of climate change. Parks and open spaces across the city continue to receive a regular grass-cutting service during the growing season. But we are increasingly leaving plots to grow naturally to help support local ecosystems and biodiversity.

"This approach ensures better habitats for a wide range of pollinators and small mammals but also helps to increase the carbon stored in soils and mitigate against flooding. We recently identified 81 species new to Glasgow, which shows the positive impact that changes to grass maintenance can make.”