This morning, having stood for 2 and a half hours, my wife Karen and I stood on Rye Road in the Barmulloch area of Glasgow and watched the first set of the Red Road flats on Petershill Drive get brought down.

During my 2 and a half years working at Asda, Robroyston, these iconic, symbols of high rise life in Glasgow always caught my eye as I drove to work. Even now, living in Lennoxtown, I see them from much further away but they still manage to catch my eye. They’re always something I look at and often said, boy what a view you must get from the top or how windy it must be on top during stormy weather. Even when walking over top of the Campsie Fells, they still stand out on the Glasgow horizon.

Loved by some and hated by others, today marked the start of renewing the city with a £27 million housing development.

The Red Road flats are an iconic group of multi-storey flats in the Balornock/ Barmulloch area in the North East of Glasgow, Scotland.  Built in the 1960’s they consisted of 8 high rise buildings reaching nearly 300 ft and housing over 4500 people.  Today, 10 June 2012 at about 1245 BST marked the begining of the demolition of the tower blocks, with the destruction of 153-213 Petershill Drive.  The remaining buildings are expected to be flattened by 2017, despite considerable opposition by the people who still live in the remaining occupied flats.

Red Road demolition ends Glasgow tower blocks’ high art (THE GUARDIAN)