Labour is investing in Glasgow neighbourhoods that have been left behind for too long
- jacksinclair4
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
Growing up in Springburn in the 1990s, I was surrounded by the faded glory of a once proud working-class community still reeling from the calamitous impact of losing its heavy industrial base in locomotive manufacturing, along with the mass demolition of what was deemed to be substandard tenement housing during the previous two decades.
When Labour came to power in 1997, the positive impact of their investment in my community soon became obvious: double glazing and central heating was installed in my house, along with thousands of others across the city, and my crumbling high school was rebuilt, along with every secondary school in Glasgow. It was observing these tangible improvements first-hand that convinced me that Labour was on the side of my working-class family and my community.
Much more still needs to be done to repair the post-war shockwaves of deindustrialisation and mass demolition across Glasgow, but progress has been stalled over the last decade by the relentless cuts caused by Tory austerity and amplified by the SNP Scottish Government in Glasgow; cuts that have hollowed out the city’s capacity to sustain services and improve communities, leaving us worse off and stoking up public frustration and resentment towards politics.
Over the last decade, disproportionate Scottish Government cuts to Glasgow City Council have cumulatively amounted to the loss of an entire year’s worth of funding. They have decimated it.
All the while, rival cities of a similar size, like Manchester and Liverpool power ahead with vast regeneration projects and a faster-growing population while Glasgow stagnates. In the 1990s it was Glasgow that led the way. The SNP are bereft of ideas and have failed this city.
Since 1999, the Scottish Parliament has transformed our democratic settlement for the better – bringing power closer to home. But power has seeped from London to Edinburgh at the expense of Greater Glasgow and the west of Scotland – leaving us the most centralised country in Europe.
Labour came back into government at a UK level last year painfully aware of the damage that a decade of Tory austerity and SNP centralisation has had on our city. That is why, over the next decade, £41.5 million will be invested directly on community-led regeneration projects in disadvantaged communities across Glasgow.
This new fund demonstrates once again the tangible difference that a Labour government makes to working-class communities – investing in areas of our city that have been left behind time-and-time-again.
The Pride in Place fund is not just about handing money and power to Ministers in Edinburgh or even Councillors in the City Chambers, it is about putting financial power directly in local people’s hands to ensure that communities are in control of improving their area.
There is certainly no shortage of ideas, but there has been a chronic lack of the capital investment needed to make them happen. That is about to change.
From investing in a community centre, improving a local high street, restoring a park to preserving architectural heritage at risk - this new fund can be invested by community boards on any project that will clearly provide public benefit and restore pride in communities that really need it.
This major investment to literally rebuild local pride is exactly why I am so proud to be a Labour parliamentarian for our city. I am looking forward to supporting our communities plan their projects over the coming months.
You can read my column in the Glasgow Times here:
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