How a community's dream of a new centre became clouded in unpaid rates

The image was grabbed from Morris’s own CCTV system and obtained by The Herald on Sunday. 

There are no laws against handling paper money - even in very large quantities. 

Morris in his early 20s inherited a huge Victorian furniture business set up by his grand-father.  Now he lets out space in his family’s former factories.

And he sometimes does so, The Herald on Sunday can reveal, for wads of notes rather than cheques, direct debits or standing orders.  

As we report today, council officials are trying to get to the bottom of how tenants at one of Morris’s former factories in Castlemilk ending up owing £1m in non-domestic rates.

There is nothing illegal about collecting rents in cash.  But it is a very different business to the one first carried out by the Morris family at their premises on Raithburn Avenue and Drakemire Drive.

The building - an Edwardian structure - is now leased by H Morris and Company from the council’s property arm.  But it is Morris who calls the shots at the site.

Read more on this story: 

• Council probe into £1million rates debt at former factory in Glasgow

Covering more than 300,000 square feet, the building has a storied past. 

H Morris and Company, founded in 1904, made furniture for more than a century. It helped kit out homes, offices and the great ships built on the Clyde. It also turned out parts for fairground attractions, seats for the ABC cinema chain and World War Two rifle butts.

In 1984 Morris took over what was by then a struggling business. A year later some 29 of his employees insisted on working a negotiated 39 hours week. Morris fired them, sparking one of the highest profile workers’ rights rows of the Margaret Thatcher era.

“Everyone has the right to withdraw their labour and to go on strike,” Morris said at the time. “But I have the right to sack them if they do.”  

A decade ago Richard Leonard, now a Labour MSP but then an organiser at the GMB spoke about the huge row which followed the dismissals. 

“What then ensued was one of the bitterest and longest industrial disputes in the city's history,” Leonard told the Glasgow Times. “It lasted two years.”

The dispute left a legacy, including in Castlemilk.

Back in 2019 it was announced that Morris was offering spaces in the old factory to charities, which, under normal circumstances, do not pay non-domestic rates.

This facility was dubbed The Foundation. Later it was rebranded as Enterprise Park.  Its redevelopment was supposed to create a hub for good causes and small business start-ups. 

Nicola McCurdy and Debbie Cunliffe outside Robert Morris's Enterprise Park (Image: Colin Mearns/The Herald) Nicola McCurdy, a community volunteer, was one of those excited by this prospect.

She helped form EPIC, a not-for-profit company. Initially called Enterprise Park Initiative Company, this outfit aimed to put life back in to the factory, creating jobs and opportunities.

But McCurdy and her colleagues first challenged Morris on his record with workers. 

“We had a conversation with him at the very beginning," she said. "We did explain the reputation of the Morris family in the area. He did categorically say:  'I know what has happened and I want to make amends.’”

McCurdy told The Herald on Sunday that EPIC - which has since rebranded as Engaging People in Communities - had funding and tenants ready to enter the building. 

The project collapsed. “The relationship broke down when everything he [Morris] promised was not produced,” said McCurdy. 

One major sticking point was the safety of the building: the old factory was not fit to be used, McCurdy said. 

During the pandemic years work was carried out to clear the structure. 

Workers pulled down board that, it emerged, contained brown asbestos. Contractors were working on the site without protective equipment.

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Relationships between Morris and his lieutenants and staff, contractors and volunteers became strained. 

Complaints were made. The Health and Safety Executive issued improvement notices against H Morris and company.

The safety enforcement body found the company in breach of both the health and safety at work act and asbestos handling regulations. 

Specifically, in an improvement notice issued in July 2023, the regulator said the company "failed to provide your employees that are liable to be exposed to asbestos, or employees who supervise such persons, with adequate information, instruction and training about the risks and precautions associated with working with asbestos containing materials". 

A second notice said that you "failed to draw up a construction phase plan or make arrangements for a construction phase plan to be drawn up during the pre-construction phase and before setting up a construction site". 

Glasgow businessman Robert Morris (Image: The Herald)

H Morris and Company has complied with these notices. But workers claim they were never informed that they were exposed to asbestos.

Cunliffe - whose husband Andy was a contractor unwittingly removing the asbestos - stepped down in 2023.

She has since developed cancer.  McCurdy and co-workers Anne Marie Lithgow and David Niven -  directors of EPIC - have also became seriously unwell. 

The former factory workers know they cannot establish  whether or not their illnesses are linked to the site. But they do blame Morris for the failure of the project.

“That man ruined my life,” said Cunliffe, whose job sometimes included collecting cash from tenants, photographing it, and then sending it to Morris at his other former factory, near Cambuslang, called Morris Park.

Local politicians had high hopes for Enterprise Park.

Robert Morris's Enterprise Park in the southside of Glasgow (Image: Colin Mearns/The Herald)

MSP James Dornan said: “After meeting with Debbie and her team it’s very clear that their goal was to provide a valuable, community based, centre for the people of Castlemilk and as an MSP I’m always pleased when anyone wants to bring fresh ideas to the constituency. 

“It became very clear to me that Debbie and many of her team were suffering with poor health and under enormous amount of strain due to the ramifications of this project. 

“My staff have worked with Debbie for an extended period of time and attended several meetings, and while as an elected member it would be inappropriate to comment on legalities we would hope all agencies involved would be working to ensure that health and safety standards were upheld and the best interests of Debbie and her team were at the forefront of any investigations. 

“Castlemilk is a vibrant area full of people who work hard at ensuring community needs are met where possible, and we would hope no business person would take advantage of those people for their own monetary gain.”

Morris did not answer questions from The Herald on Sunday on Enterprise Park. However, his lawyer, in letters she asked us not to report, insisted her client was of good standing in the community and a business hub was materialising at the old Castlemilk factory. 

Morris did not just make cash. He also tried to give it away.  Lithgow was let go from the factory. Hearing she too had cancer, Morris visited her at home and handed her a bag with a housecoat. Inside, hidden, was an envelope with £2000.  She returned it.

* None of the sources or contributors to this story were paid for their time.