Whether it was for the greater good or not, the motorway changed areas of Glasgow beyond recognition. Buildings were demolished and long-established communities were displaced forcing friends, neighbours and relatives to spread out far and wide.
Glasgow city engineer Robert Bruce delivered his First Planning Report to The Highways and Planning Committee in March 1945. His radical proposals would transform Glasgow - how people would live, where they would work, how the city centre could be developed, and how people could travel across the city. In June 1965, Scott, Wilson, Kirkpatrick and Partners produced A Highway Plan for Glasgow - a definitive outline for the city’s road network for decades to come. The Glasgow inner city section of the M8 was constructed between 1968 and 1972 The once heavily-populated areas of Townhead, Cowcaddens, Charing Cross, Anderston and Kinning Park would never be the same again.
Here we take a look at those areas and how the M8 changed them forever.
9. Cowcaddens
Cowcaddens began life as a village to the north west of the old centre of Glasgow. The district grew following the construction of the Monklands Canal, leading to it being amalgamated with Glasgow in 1846. Designated a Comprehensive Development Area in the 1960s, very few of Cowcaddens’ original tenements now survive. Also demolished was Buchanan Street Railway Station, which, along with St Enoch to the south, was considered surplus to requirements in the wake of the Beeching Report. The area today is a mish-mash of commercial developments, high rise housing, busy roads and underpasses, with the M8 providing a distinct barrier to the north. Photo: Shutterstock
10. Kinning Park
In the 1970s the district was cut in two by the motorway’s western approach towards Tradeston. Swathes of Kinning Park’s four-storey sandstone tenements gradually disappeared, with residents shipped out to far flung outskirts. Photo: Shutterstock
11. Charing Cross
Douglas Thomson told Lost Glasgow: "Charing Cross in 1968 and 2018, showing how half a century can change even a still-familiar scene. The 1968 shot is from my late-uncle's collection, and was probably taken when he became aware the Grand Hotel on the left was shortly to be dismantled, to make way for the brand new M8." | Douglas Thomson
12. Kingston Bridge construction
Vast swathes of the city were cleared to make way for new sections of motorway to connect to the Kingston Bridge over the Clyde. | Kingston Bridge construction