page_title: Red Road Flats
section_title: Decline
hierarchical_section_title: Red Road Flats / Decline
caption_attribution_description: English: Red Road flats, Glasgow
context_page_description: The Red Road Flats were a mid-twentieth-century high-rise housing complex located between the districts of Balornock and Barmulloch in the northeast of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate originally consisted of eight multi-storey blocks of steel frame construction. All were demolished by 2015. Two were "slabs", much wider in cross-section than they are deep. Six were "points", more of a traditional tower block shape. The slabs had 28 floors, the point blocks 31, and taken together, they were designed for a population of 4,700 people. The point blocks were among the tallest buildings in Glasgow at 89 metres, second in overall height behind the former Bluevale and Whitevale Towers in Camlachie. The 30th floor of the point blocks were the highest inhabitable floor level of any building in Glasgow.
  Views from the upper floors drew the eye along the Campsie Fells to Ben Lomond and the Arrochar Alps, then west past the Erskine Bridge and out to Goat Fell on the Isle of Arran continuing south over Glasgow and East towards Edinburgh. On a clear day, the buildings were visible on the Glasgow skyline from up to 10 miles away.
context_section_description: By the 1970s the estate had gained a reputation for anti-social crime, ranging from disaffected youths throwing objects from the roofs to frequent burglaries. Such problems were less severe than those evident in parts of the city such as the nearby low-rise Blackhill estate, long dominated by ruthless crime gangs. But they were able to strike a nerve in the perceptions of non-residents, owing partly to the "looming" ambience of the blocks which in some ways might be called emblematic. The slab blocks, for example, are not only 25 storeys high but also almost 100 metres wide.
  A major turning point came in August 1977, when a fire started by vandals in an empty flat on the 23rd floor of 10 Red Road Court, caused serious structural damage to the building, resulting in the death of a 12-year-old boy and a large number of tenants being evacuated. Many refused to return to their ruined homes, since the fire had brought to the fore the issues surrounding the asbestos lining used in the buildings, and prompted the outer refurbishment of the towers. As a mark of respect – the flat on Floor 23 of 10 Red Road Court was never let out again for rent, and instead was refurbished as a drop-in "community flat" with social amenities for the whole estate.
  Around 1980 the authorities declared two of the blocks (10 Red Road Court, and 33 Petershill Drive) unfit as family accommodation and transferred them for use by students and the YMCA respectively. These happened to be the blocks closest to the front of the complex when approached from the city centre. Being nearest the bus stop, they were also easiest to locate for the YMCA guests and college students. 
  By the time the 1980s had dawned, it had become clear that the optimism that had surrounded the policy of high rise housing had waned in less than two decades, and despite attempts to regenerate the estate, drug dealing, muggings and other serious crime continued, and the towers also became a frequent spot for suicides. Along with the equally controversial and derided Hutchesontown C estate in the Gorbals, Red Road became increasingly looked upon as a monument to the errors of Glasgow's ambitious post-war housing renewal policy.
caption: The two most westerly blocks of the complex; 10 Red Road Court (left) and 33 Petershill Drive (centre), were later used as student accommodation and a YMCA, respectively
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