Red Road tower block demolished

Jun 10 2012

Thousands of people have gathered to watch the demolition of one of the most famous buildings on the Glasgow skyline.

Former residents joined architecture fans and local people to see one of the towering blocks of the Red Road flats come down. Some even sat in deckchairs as the building disappeared in an enormous dust cloud.

The multi-storey building in north Glasgow was blown down in a controlled explosion on Sunday afternoon. It took around 275 kilos of explosives to reduce the steel-framed triple block to rubble.

When they were built in the mid-Sixties, the Red Road flats were the highest in Europe at 292ft (89m). They were designed to hold 4,700 people but now just 300 people live there, after decades of slipping into decline.

In March 2010, three Russian asylum seekers who had been living in the flats jumped to their deaths from one of the towers in Petershill Drive. In 2006, director Andrea Arnold used the flats as the setting for her Scottish Bafta-winning film Red Road.

The demolition is part of regeneration plans by the flats' owners the Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), and partners.

Many of the former tenants of the flats were rehoused locally in some of the 259 new-build homes built by GHA. Other residents moved into new or upgraded GHA homes across the city or other social landlords' new homes.

GHA's executive director of development and regeneration Alex McGuire said: "We are working closely with our partners to make Glasgow a great place to live and create communities people are proud to live in.

"The Red Road flats were popular in their day and are known around the world, but their time has come to an end. We're pleased the demolition of the first of the Red Road blocks went according to plan."

The remaining seven multi-storey builds in the area are to be demolished by 2017.