Govan. Rich in significance and stories, Glasgow’s riverside community, has had two great eras in its history: At the heart of a Medieval Kingdom of Strathclyde, where its vital position on the banks of The Clyde provided a crossing point where the city’s earliest local industries and settlement were to develop; later to be a bastion for shipbuilding and immense industrial prowess, and social change. Its landscape has left a legacy.
As Govan’s age of shipbuilding gave way to competition from elsewhere, the area suffered a loss of jobs which accelerated a fallout, visible in neglected tenements, vacant sites, and social deprivation, as seen in other parts of the city. Govan’s spirit and resilience needed a strategy to reinvent itself.
I first visited thanks to a commission from Urban Realm Magazine to document and write about change in Govan’s built environment which introduced me to an amazing array of projects, ideas, conversations and events focused on creating a brighter future for the area.
Grassroot organisations and community enterprises were listening to what people wanted, filling in gaps where investment and top down strategies had failed or overlooked. The Graving Docks and the area around Govan Cross became a focus for ideas to bring about change and for collaborations and ideas to take hold.
People need to be empowered to be in the driving seat of the areas renewal. A future for Govan that respected its story, heritage, and people was being shaped with local knowledge, new housing and social inclusion central to the regeneration of the area. This ground up reaffirmation of a place has been backed up by the large scale improvements in infrastructure, and housing supported by the City Council and conservation bodies and receiving a boost from City Deal regional funding which has enabled the fantastic new bridge across the Clyde to connect with Partick and unlock further change and development in Govan.
The Govan-Partick bridge will bring people across and encourage visitors to see the Govan Stones, and explore the area. At the heart of Govan lies Water Row – the route from Govan Cross to the river. Where once a sacred power capital of the Kingdom of Strathclyde resided, it became the beating heart of shipbuilding; before bleaker days as a tarmacced carpark, reflected the problems of Govan’s cultural plight. Times are changing; new housing has arrived, yet a hostile fence surrounding the community of show people’s site highlights contested views for the site. Govan’s future success will be dependent on meeting the needs of local people, and working to build a stronger local community that respects its past whilst building a new vision and reconnecting with the wider city.
