Plans for nearly 600 student flats and 150 family homes have been unveiled for the final piece in a regeneration jigsaw after 20 years.

Proposals for a £95 million multi-use residential development in with a 2.5 acre park and a contemporary arts centre have been submitted.

Developers Glasgow Enlightenment has announced today that they have lodged a planning application with Glasgow City Council for Collegelands Park, Calton, following a three-month community consultation period.

It will include two student accommodation blocks with 591 beds in total and 147 rented apartments, with a new arts centre “featuring sliding glass walls opening out to a courtyard”. A park with “meadows, orchards and seating will provide a place for local people to meet up, relax and exercise”, the developer said.

The new neighbourhood will be built “on the last gap site of the popular Collegelands development, which was launched more than 20 years ago to help regenerate the Calton area, attracting new residents and creating local jobs”.

Paul O’Donnell, of Glasgow Enlightenment, said: “It’s great to share the final vision for Collegelands Park and I’d like to thank everyone who came along to our consultation meetings and gave us their views on how the development could best serve the local community.

“We have lowered the heights of the buildings to address concerns around visual impact and have taken on board the feedback on how the park should look from local residents and community groups.

“We are very excited about plans for the development, which will deliver new green space, cultural activities and rented accommodation for the local community, along with much needed homes for students in Glasgow, which has the largest shortage of purpose-built student accommodation in the UK.

“It will offer a real opportunity for students to develop lasting ties with the city and become part of the local community.”

The new arts facility will be built by charity Dream Machine Productions, which has for the last nine years operated a successful community hub with music and art studios, a café, galleries and music venues in London Road.

The new venue at Collegelands Park will offer hireable event space, a community lounge and a café, opening out to the courtyard with “Happy to Chat” benches, free Wi-Fi, charging points and spaces that encourage outdoor remote working.

Matt Lygate, Dream Machine founder, said: “We have been renting our present space for a long time but it will be amazing to have our own purpose-built hub where we can host meetup groups, provide space for community events, put on a year round public relaxation programme and become a home for many other community projects bringing value to us all.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create an incredible venue, which will make a real difference to the lives of the people in the Calton area.

“This facility is key to fostering the incredible talent of people in this part of Glasgow – the local people, students who are living here while they are studying, artists and musicians.”

The Dream Machine is working to secure funding for the building, with a five-year strategy to have enough revenue-generating activity to be financially sustainable and remove dependency on external funding.

The Collegelands regeneration project was launched in 2004 in a bid to bring new homes and opportunities to the Calton area of the city. Today, Collegelands is “one of Scotland’s most successful mixed-use developments with a thriving community, a new Moxy hotel, offices, homes and shops”.

Graeme Bone, of Glasgow Enlightenment, said: “It will be great to see the new park and the arts facility being built at Collegelands Park, a really fitting legacy for all the hard work that has been done over the past 20 years to develop this vibrant new neighbourhood and green space in the city.”

MONEY HQ

How important is saving for Scottish and UK retirement?

 

This article appears as part of the Money HQ newsletter.

Pension Awareness Week is an initiative that aims to raise awareness about the importance of saving for retirement.

As people are living longer and the landscape continues to evolve, it’s important to be able to plan effectively for your retirement years and make the most of your pension opportunities – that’s where a financial adviser can help.

Whether you’ve got 20 years before you have an idea of just how much money you’ll need for a comfortable lifestyle once you stop earning a regular salary.

Flamingo Land decision day

 

Today, following a marathon session of site-visit, hearing, and meeting in the lochside village of Balloch, the Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park Authority board is set to make a decision on the controversial Lomond Banks project.

The resort comprising woodland lodges, hotels, monorail, waterpark and other facilities, has been proposed for the southernmost point of Loch Lomond. Frequently the development is referred to as 'Flamingo Land' Loch Lomond, since its parent company is the Yorkshire theme park operator.

The decision, which is being made on the second application for the development, could bring to conclusion an eight-year-long saga, during which the proposal has become the ‘most objected to’ planning application in history. Most of those objections have been received through a petition objection portal created by the Scottish Greens and the Save Loch Lomond campaign, which now has over 154,000 signatures.