News and current local issues

 

 

 

 

 

Recent items of general interest

 

  Glasgow Community and Safety Services  GCSS

 Private and public lanes in Jordanhill

 

Glasgow Community and Safety Services  -  GCSS

 

At our AGM on 1 December 2008, we had a speaker from GCSS who gave an insight to this new organisation.

 

GCSS is an “arm’s length” organisation with its own senior staff (not directly under the control of Glasgow City Council), set up and funded by Glasgow City Council and Strathclyde Police.       It brings together around 500 staff taken from City Council departments, the Police, Strathclyde Fire and Rescue, Glasgow Community Safety Partnership  and the city’s public space CCTV company.

 

They aim to provide (and/or co-ordinate) a very wide range of services including:     graffiti removal,  home safety and security service,  “violence against women”,  community enforcement against litter and dog fouling,   community safety patrols,    CCTV,   and antisocial behaviour noise monitoring,     

 

They operate a large fleet of vans fitted with elevating CCTV masts and their officers wear uniforms similar to the police but with blue cap rims.   They have powers to issue on-the-spot fines for offenders dropping litter or permitting dog fouling.   Unlike the police however they have no powers of arrest.

 

For further information on GCSS, contact   0141 276 7400

 

 

Our speaker supplied a card with the following useful list of phone numbers for various community problems     The GCSS slogans are “See something, say something” and “Clean Glasgow,  it’s our city, play your part”

 

Graffiti, fly tipping and fly posting removal    0800 027 7027

 

Bulk refuse uplift and needle uplift    0141 287 9700

 

Water mains leakage or bursts    0845 600 8855

 

Roads and lighting faults     0800 37 36 35

 

Strathclyde Police     0141 532 3000

 

Crimestoppers     0800 555 111

 

Abandoned cars     0141 276 0859

 

CCTV control centre    0141 287 9999

 

 

 

 

 

Private and public lanes in Jordanhill

 

During the last few years there have been several requests by individual residents for information on whether or not their lane is public or private.   We have now obtained a definitive map from Land Services showing the situation clearly and this is attached for information.  The lanes shown in red are maintained by the City Council (the formal term is “adopted”) wheras the lanes shown in blue are private.

 

A word of explanation may be required.      A public lane means that the City Council maintains the surface of the lane whereas in the case of a private lane, the responsibility for maintenance falls to the adjacent houseowner.       Both types of lane are “roads” under the Roads Scotland Act and the public have right of access.       Owners of private lanes cannot gate them.        For the sake of clarity there is a third type “road” known as a “private access road” (such as the roads within the Jordanhill Campus site) where the owner of the site has to maintain them but has the right to exclude the public from them.

 

It is worth noting that the random distribution of private lanes resulted from a consultation undertaken by the former Glasgow Corporation a few years before the setting up of Strathclyde Regional Council in 1975.     The Corporation generously undertook to take over the maintenance of all lanes in the city unless there were objections from adjoining owners.     At that time, a number of totally misguided activists demanded that their lanes remained private and that is what created the present situation.   Most likely all these misguided individuals have died or moved away, but we are currently left with the unsatisfactory results of their actions.   

 

Glasgow City Council website contains a wealth of information and we have now discovered that it is possible to obtain the attached map by following a devious trail through the site as follows:     go to   http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/  then on the home page click on Residents, /then Getting around,  /Roads,  /Statutory List of Public Roads,  /Online mapping,   / “access online mapping here” and finally inserting a street name in the table which appears.

 

We have been asked what would be involved in having the private lanes adopted by the City Council.    When the matter was last raised a few years ago, we were told that adjacent houseowners would have to pay to have the lanes fully reconstructed to a high standard.    

 

 

 

 

Notes last revised  13 April 2010

 

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