Colour photograph, 2005
Survey by RCAHMS
Constructed in the late 1960s, the eight high-rise blocks of the Red Road estate offered a solution to some of Glasgow’s housing problems. Over 4,000 people living in crowded, delapidated housing moved to the estate. The first residents experienced a new life in modern, comfortable conditions in the tallest residential buildings in Europe.
The estate also experienced its share of problems, gaining a reputation for crime in the 1970s. No longer considered fit for tenants, two blocks were sold off in the 1980s.
However, world events have allowed the estate to offer safe homes to new residents. Flats provided accommodation to refugees fleeing war-torn former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Today, Red Road shelters asylum seekers from Africa, Asia, the former Soviet Union, Iran and Iraq.
The estate now lies under the control of the Glasgow Housing Association, who are exploring options for the regeneration of the area.