Keep Glasgow dear and green!

Just read A subway train to the future – a very important post about North Kelvin Meadow by fellow poet Christie Williamson. There are not enough urban wildernesses being left alone in Glasgow, certainly not ones you’d be happy for your kids to play on. As a child in Glasgow myself, I remember playing down where the Kelvin meets the Clyde – a place that is still a wilderness, but now fenced in and ripe for the developers, opposite the new Riverside Museum. I like the museum, and support development where it’s needed, such as along the Clyde, but the West End is not in need of more flats, it is in need of breathing space, and joyful community spaces. Yes, there is a need for housing, but there are plenty of brownfield sites and derelict buildings – some of the most beautiful listed buildings in the world are being left to rot and fall down in Merchant City, while green spaces such as the meadow and characterful streets such as Otago Lane are under threat, just because of where they are. Let’s fight for them!

About Pedalling Poetry

Writer Ellen McAteer is founder of Tell It Slant poetry bookshop in Glasgow, General Manager at Poetry London magazine. She was a visiting lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art, and a mentee of the Clydebuilt Verse Apprenticeship Scheme, under Alexander Hutchison, and a singer with the band Stone Tape, as well as a solo singer who won a BBC Radio competition with her song Blue Valentine. She was Director of the Poetry Trust, which ran the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, a director of the Scottish Writers’ Centre, a visiting lecturer at Oxford University's MSt in creative writing, and a member of the core group of performers at the Hammer and Tongue spoken word collective in Oxford. She is a qualified Librarian.

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