“This scar will never heal”: Could Glasgow ever replace the M8?

More than 50 years on since the M8 was carved through the city, ripping up communities in its wake, could a future without it be on the cards? The Replace the M8 campaigners think so.

In 1965, the Glasgow Corporation began dismantling Anderston, Cowcaddens and Townhead at pace. Sandstone brick by sandstone brick, large swathes of the city’s Georgian and Victorian architecture were stripped away in the name of modernization. Thousands of residents and businesses were displaced and encouraged to move to the suburbs in the name of progress.

The idea for a major motorway through the city had been in the works for twenty years and the time had finally come. The original plan was to construct a ring road in the shape of a box around the city centre with at least three arterial motorways (Monklands, Renfrew and Maryhill) feeding into it. Only a quarter of Glaswegians owned a car at the time. But city planners were anticipating the endless growth of car use, and Glasgow was being transformed to benefit motorists at the expense of those who walked, took public transport or cycled.

Protests erupted locally when parts of the M8 were completed in 1972. As the Lord Provost celebrated its official opening by being the first to drive on the new motorway, students gathered on an overpass with raised fists. They bore signs that read “This scar will never heal” and “The car is a luxury not a necessity”.