We’re venturing north of the border in this edition of Nimby Watch, to the area of Port Dundas in the north of Glasgow. Let’s see what awaits…
Okay then, what are we looking at this week? Well, for once we seem to have the rest of the media on our side. We’re looking at a planning decision relating to what’s getting described as an ‘old sawmill’, and several major outlets seem to be sniggering at the Nimbys.
That seems unusual. It does! Local media especially tends to lean heavily towards Nimbyism, because those stories seem to get read – we’ve yet to convince newspaper groups that Yimbys can look at adverts too, alas.
But in this instance, Nimbys successfully blocked a plan to turn this site in Port Dundas into 60 flats – with a lot of help from Labour MSP Paul Sweeney, only to find themselves in the Daily Mail, BBC, and a fair few other places.
Okay, if we’ve got the Daily Mail on side, the Yimbys really must be winning the argument then. Maybe. There are special circumstances at play, here, as it turns out. The local campaigners had fought to secure a designated status for the old building, and then managed to use this listed status to defeat planners through the appeals process. It’s just that it was only once they’d won that they discovered what the pretty run-down sawmill office building is currently being used for – or at least that’s what everyone concerned is claiming.
I dread to ask, but I feel like I have to: what was the old building being used for? There’s not really a delicate way to put this: it’s being used a sex club. Nimbys trying to make sure that there’s no new building that might influence their area or their house prices have made it a lot easier for a swinger club to continue operating on the existing site.
Now I see why the Daily Mail wrote about it! There’s more. The sex club had, at one point, been attended by a man who is now convicted for murder and multiple counts of rape. That’s the kind of stuff that gets you a lot of attention in the national media.
I can see why that’s awkward for the campaigners. Exactly. Labour MSP Paul Sweeney and the local campaign groups involved have all stressed that they had no idea what the building was being used for – though that does raise questions as to how they managed to spend years campaigning for it to remain without finding out basic information like that.
So… what’s the Yimby take on sex clubs? I’m not sure there is one, though it doesn’t seem any fairer to blame the club here for one man’s crimes than it would be to blame a pub where one local turned out to be a murderer. Judging by its website, the club seems friendly enough – it runs different nights for newcomers, for gay or trans guests, and is stereotypically British enough to offer would-be swingers free coffee, tea and a buffet bar. That’s downright wholesome.
I still think I’ll pass. That’s very much your right. One lesson here is that when disused buildings are left in limbo for years, they attract the kinds of tenants who will tolerate dilapidated buildings and no certainty on their lease – which is often this kind of niche social club. A neighbourhood sex club is perhaps just a natural side effect of persistent Nimbyism.
Is that your big take home lesson here? No, I’m trying to pull a clever bait and switch with all the sex stuff. Because honestly, the real scandal here is that this place got listed in the first place. It’s being described as a ‘sawmill’, but in reality it’s the old office building for a long-since demolished sawmill that once existed on their site.
So this preserved example of Glasgow’s industrial history is actually just an office that once had some industrial history next to it? Exactly. Even the listing site seems to struggle a bit with its special features. It is ‘a good surviving example of a late 19th century industrial office building’ and has ‘special design interest in the use of industrial brick with a high degree of detailing’. This is enough, apparently, to make it ‘an important reminder of the city’s industrial past’.
Come on, that can’t be enough to get a building listed… can it? Historic Environment Scotland have really put in the work to go further. Under the ‘association with people or events of national importance’ category, they detail the life of the sawmill’s owner James Brownlee, noting that ‘in 1877 [he] was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institute of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland for a paper on ‘The Action of Water When Flowing Through a Nozzle’’.
Perhaps guessing that we might not be entirely impressed by that, even HES sadly conclude: ‘There is some interest in the association with this significant Glasgow industrialist of the later 19th century however this is not of national importance.’
Well, it’s nice to have a note of agreement to end on. Isn’t it just? I’m not sure there’s a good moral to this particular story, but at least we can all leave reassured that CJ’s Adult Parties is free to run its ‘Angels & Demons theme’ Valentine’s parties this weekend in a certified piece of Glasgow’s industrial history. They’re even offering a free cocktail to all attendees. How lovely.
