The Glasgow Wrap 🗞 Thursday 20 February 2025
Pensioner arrested at anti-abortion protest, budget day at Glasgow City Council, five hospitalised after M8 crash, asylum seeker travel allowance update + Trakke closes down
☔ Good Morning Glasgow! The Met Office forecasts rain and a high of 12C. Here’s Thursday’s Wrap…
🚔 A woman, 74, was the first person to be arrested and charged after flouting the buffer zone and protesting abortion outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital on Wednesday afternoon. - Hannah Brown, The Herald.
🚨 Five people were taken to hospital after a crash at Junction 19 on the M8 near the city centre on Tuesday night. - Keiran Fleming, STV.
🚗 Councillors will meet today to set the budget for the next year and one consideration to raise money for the cash-strapped council is implementing a toll on the Clyde Tunnel along with council tax rises. - Stewart Paterson, Glasgow Times.
✍ Council leader Susan Aitken has penned a column on the forthcoming budget for the Glasgow Times: “Even in these toughest of financial times, our budget will deliver for the city and its people, putting millions of pounds into the services Glaswegians rely on and citizens have told us are important to them.”
📋 The all-council meeting kicks off at 11am. You can find the Agenda here with associated papers and watch the excitement live via Webcast here.
📢 Trade unions gathered outside the City Chambers yesterday ahead of today’s budget meeting to demand the local authority lobby the UK and Scottish Governments for more funding instead of relying on cuts to balance the books. - Drew Sandelands, Local Democracy Reporter, Glasgow Times.
🚧 Hydepark Street has reopened to traffic a month after a building collapsed prematurely amid a demolition. - Ben Waddell, Glasgow Times.
🚌 Asylum seekers staying in Glasgow will now get £4.96 in their weekly budget for travel according to a letter sent by a UK minister to council leader Susan Aitken in response to her calls for free bus travel to be introduced and for them to have the right to work. - Sarah Hilley, Local Democracy Reporter, Glasgow Live.
🏢 Owners of a building at 33 Bothwell Street are seeking a change of use classification to convert the office into student flats with a rooftop extension. - Urban Realm.
🛌 Council teams carried out health and safety inspections of seven homeless hotels to check standards and said operators obeyed any recommendations so no enforcement orders were issued. - Sarah Hilley, Local Democracy Reporter, Glasgow Live.
🌳 West End residents have hit out at the council for neglecting to remove a fallen tree on Kelvin Walkway weeks after it was knocked down amid Storm Eowyn. - Fahad Tariq, Glasgow Live.
↳ A council spokesperson said: “It has been difficult to respond to the challenges caused by these fallen trees due to size and access issues.”
🚯 Councillor Kevin Lalley is calling for a path outside Broomhouse in the East End next to the M8/M73 to be blocked off so that fly-tippers don’t return to dump there after it was cleared. - Sarah Hilley, Local Democracy Reporter, Glasgow Live.
🛋 Sterling Home will restructure and make redundancies in response to the UK Government’s employer national insurance contribution hike. - Keiran Fleming, STV.
🎒 Glasgow bag manufacturer Trakke is closing after 15 years. - Gabriel McKay, The Herald.
🚆 A man was hospitalised after being attacked by two other men on a train from Coatbridge Sunnyside to Glasgow Queen Street on Tuesday evening. Police are on the hunt for the pair and looking for witnesses to come forward. - Jonathan Blackburn, Glasgow Live.
🍴 Chef Gary Townsend’s Elements in Bearsden has been awarded Three AA Rosettes and is the only Scottish restaurant to be awarded any Rosettes this year. - Sean Murphy, Glasgow Live.
🎨 The artist line-up was announced for the graffiti and street art festival Yardworks 2025 (May 3-4). Liam Smillie has the full list for Glasgow World.
🌙 Cathcart Window Wanderland is March 7-9 (6-9.30pm). If you live in the area or Merrylee and Muirend, here’s what you need to know about the free event and how to take part.
🕺 The Glasgow Culture Wrap: 19 - 25 February 2025: Gaelic Arts Plan introduced, Short Film Festival programme, new mural, Glasgow Art Map archive + food/drink updates, gig/stage announcements and more
🤩 You can get free access to all of The Wrap’s extra content (the Culture Wrap, the Weekend Guide, the Sunday Edition & more) when you successfully refer three people. Find your unique URL here and see the leaderboard.
🏢 The rise and fall of the Wyndford Towers - Read this week’s Sunday Edition by Eszter Tarnai.
📌 The Glasgow Wrap Community Noticeboard
↳ Submit your news, events, shoutouts etc to be featured. This newsletter is designed to get the word out about what’s happening around Glasgow, so let us know what you’ve got on.
📌 Merchant City and Trongate Community Council is holding its latest Litter Pick on Saturday February 22 and is calling for volunteers to join the tidy-up. Meet at Ramshorn Church (Ingram Street) at 10.30am (runs until 1pm). Equipment will be provided.
📌 Join us for Tour Talk & a Cuppa at the Southern Necropolis, G5 0TB. Sunday February 23rd 12 noon til 2.00. Thanks Tim for sharing! Find out more.
📌 Raeesa Hussain, a final-year student at the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering, is conducting research on how cultural and personal factors influence transport mode choices in the UK. Your insights can help shape a deeper understanding of mobility behaviors, preferences, and decision-making patterns. If you live in the UK, we’d love to hear from you! Thanks to lecturer Pavlos Tafidis for sharing! Here’s the survey.
📌 Do you live in G41 / G51? Would you like to get involved in growing herbs/veg and other plants? The KPC garden has been redesigned during the last refurbishment and needs a bit of rethinking with your input! We'd love for you to join us on Monday, Feb 24 for a planning session and get involved in the next phase of development for the garden. Perhaps even signup as a garden volunteer! No experience necessary - just have green fingers or simply enjoy being outdoors! Either join us in person or fill in the survey via our Linktree. Thanks Shona for sharing!
Love these wraps. Thanks!