Cardonald flooding project backed by Councillors

Southside Housing Association and the council have planned an award-winning project to “reduce the risk and effects of flooding” at Queensland Gardens.

And the city’s contracts and property committee has now approved three moves which will allow construction to get under way.

It is hoped “complex” ownership issues have been resolved, with Southside Housing Association taking over the whole site.

The work will include swales, which are channels to store run-off water, and sustainable drainage ponds as well as a community park, with resident’s garden and seating.

Councillors agreed to dispose of 658 square metres of land to Southside Housing, which had been retained by the council following “an error” in the housing stock transfer process, when the council transferred homes to Glasgow Housing Association.

They also approved the required licences for work to start and backed taking a wayleave, which will give the council right of access to areas of land for maintenance work once the project is completed.

A council officer said: “The final result of this transaction, or this whole exercise, will be to have the entire site within the control of Southside Housing Association.

“It will have all of the flood prevention work which are intended on this part of the site installed and eventually maintained by Scottish Water, and it will correct a slight title anomaly which occurred during stock transfer.

“The council will eventually be fully out of this site and it will be totally under the control of the Southside Housing Association.”

He said the project was a “good example of joined-up thinking and working”. “The council and Southside Housing Association both wish to carry out groundworks, and we are going to do it on a combined contract and thereby save both parties some money.”

Cllr Jim Kavanagh, who represents Cardonald, thanked council officers and Southside Housing for the “common sense approach” to land ownership, which avoids having a “patchwork quilt with a wee bit here and a wee bit there”.

Plans, co-developed by Raeburn Farquhar Bowen and engineering consultants Sweco, were approved in 2019, and the scheme won the Building with Nature National Award at the Landscape Institute Awards 2021.