The changing spaces of home - why the low-carbon agenda matters for geography

By Dr Louise Reid, University of St Andrews. This article first appeared in the summer 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

Homes are gaining capacities unachievable a few decades ago. Their computerisation and automation are re-configuring how we imagine home, what we expect from our homes, and how we use them. The rise of the ‘smart home’, which according to the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry is “a dwelling incorporating a communications network that connects the key electrical appliances and services, and allows them to be remotely controlled, monitored or accessed”, is imagined as the home of the future.

The growing popularity of the smart home rests on three key ideas: ease, security and energy efficiency. Firstly, smart homes are easier to manage; for instance, a thermostat can control heating to a specific ambient temperature, saving the householder from having to continually adjust radiators. Secondly, smart homes are secure as they can incorporate alarm systems such as notifications that an appliance requires servicing or is overheating. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, smart homes can switch off appliances not in use, or time appliance use to make the most efficient use of energy. Recent initiatives by Google and Apple to acquire and develop smart home platforms, demonstrate the growth and opportunities for future development in this area.

There are three key elements required for a home to be considered smart: an appropriate internal network (wires or wireless); a mechanism to manage the system (intelligent control); and, objects or items within the home which can be automated, for instance a smart TV. Moreover, smart homes can be designed and built from scratch, or features of a smart home can be retrofitted as homes are upgraded. Although the extent to which homes in the UK are smart is not fully known, it is clear that the direction of the domestic arena is towards a smarter’ more ubiquitous home, animated by the development of coded objects and pervasive computing. A smart home may, for instance, turn off lights when a person leaves a room, may close windows if a sensor detects rain, or may even recommend foods to buy as the fridge empties. The potential implications of smart homes are numerous and mean that seemingly mundane and routine domestic practices are changing, and by so doing are imperceptibly reconfiguring and reshaping the spatiality of homes.

For many decades, discussions of home have been core to geographical scholarship. So too have issues such as techno-utopia and socio-technical systems. The role and extent of smart homes, their automated, automatic and autonomous objects, raises interesting and new issues for geographers to explore. As Rob Kitchin and Martin Dodge acknowledged in their 2011 book Code/ Space, the pervasiveness of computer code and the rolling out of the ‘Internet of Things’, are implicated in new spatialities across many domains. Software as ‘everyware’ is radically changing how we imagine space, the relationship between code and space mutually constituted. New questions such as who designs, develops, builds, installs, operates, maintains and destroys these technologies, are a growing concern of many geographers. Indeed, a number of research projects are now underway to explore how the relationships we have with our homes, and the stuff therein, are changing.

My research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, explores how the push towards low-carbon living is influencing these everyday domestic environments. Uncertainties around climate change and energy security mean there is considerable appetite to use energy more efficiently, and the development of smart homes is lauded as having a key role in this (for example, remote monitoring and control of domestic appliances). Understanding how these transitions are experienced by householders will be essential as the low-carbon agenda unfolds. How might the move towards domestic animation and automation change what we understand as home? There is little doubt that objects with new capacities will influence our everyday practices, but in what way? And how will data be used, by whom, for what purpose? At this stage, there are perhaps more questions than answers, but it is an exciting time for geographers concerned with domestic spaces and everyday experiences.

The next generation - which way now for the great Scottish energy debate?

By Adrian Shaw, Climate Change Officer, Church of Scotland. This article first appeared in the summer 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

Speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival 2013, George Monbiot argued that we need nuclear power to help us respond to climate change. He argued that we cannot allow exaggerated misconceptions about its safety to blind us to its advantages. While he made it clear he was not a fan of the nuclear industry or its managers, he argued forcibly that nuclear power is a source of low-carbon energy we cannot afford to ignore. At the same event, Professor Sue Roaf of Heriot-Watt University argued with equal passion that advances in solar power meant that we should now embrace it more fully in Scotland. In the same week, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote an article in The Telegraph, declaring his support for fracking in Britain, arguing that it would lower fuel bills, create jobs and benefit local communities.

The energy debate is clearly well and truly underway, and we are approaching a time when critical decisions will have to be taken about the future direction of Scottish and UK energy policy.

The Scottish Government has set its face against nuclear, is distancing itself from fracking, but supports the continued development of offshore oil and gas in Scottish waters. It is also strongly supportive of wind power, both on land and offshore. The UK Government supports new nuclear power stations and fracking (and is responsible for approving and licensing all UK fracking rights), but seems less convinced about wind power, at least in areas where it arouses local controversy.

In part, this reflects our different circumstances. Scotland has the biggest wind resource and the lion’s share of North Sea oil and gas. But the decisions we take in the next year or two are critical. The Church of Scotland wants to see a clear, ethically-minded approach. We strongly support the Scottish Government’s climate change targets. Equally, we are concerned about the extent of fuel poverty in Scotland, and energy policy must seek to reduce or remove fuel poverty as an objective. We need this debate to be well-informed and we need it quickly, as the wrong decision could tie us in to developments we could be stuck with for decades to come

The Energy of Nations

By Jeremy Leggett, social entrepreneur, author, founder & chairman of Solarcentury & SolarAid. This article first appeared in the summer 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

As the unprecedented British floods of last winter subsided, ruinous as they were for so many, it was worth remembering that psychologists tell us we have a very worrying collective tendency for blindness to the kind of risks that can crash economies and imperil civilisations. I believe that Big Energy is repeating the failing, guilty of an enculturated risk blindness that, unless action is taken, will lead to an inevitable global crash, and not just because of the climate change they fuel.

Since the oil price began its inexorable rise in 2004, I have watched captains of the energy and financial incumbencies at work as the risk taking has built in energy markets. Too many people across the top levels of government and business have closed their eyes and ears to systemic risk taking.

I see four systemic risks. The first and biggest is climate change. We have way more conventional fossil fuel than we need to wreck the climate. Yet the energy incumbency wants us to pile unconventional deposits on the fire, not least by fracking. Second, we risk creating a carbon bubble in the capital markets: puffing up assumed value in fossil fuels that can never be realised. Third, we risk surprising ourselves with the so-called ‘shale boom’ in US gas and oil production. That too may prove to be a bubble, maybe even a Ponzi scheme, I believe. Fourth, we court disaster with our assumptions about oil depletion. Most of us believe the narrative that there will be adequate flow rates of just-about affordable oil for decades to come. I am in a minority who disbelieve the story.

It would be unwise to forget how few whistle-blowers there were in the run-up to the financial crash. Because of the sheer prevalence of risk blindness, overlain with the pervasiveness of oil dependency in modern economies, I reluctantly conclude system collapse is probably inevitable. But there is better news. I believe that there will be a road to renaissance, in the re-building, and especially so if we make the right decisions as we awaken to warnings like the UK floods. We have to nurture clean energy industries, and strategies, and accelerate them as though mobilising for war. We have to kick our fossil fuel dependency into touch. The two-year preparations for the vital December 2015 climate summit in Paris will provide one opportunity to do it. If that doesn’t work, the next great crisis of capitalism will provide another. There won’t be any more, I fear.

130 YEARS OF INSPIRATION

Monday 21st Geographical Society - the unofficial birthday of one of Scotland’s longest standing charities.

July marked the 130th Anniversary of the founding of The Royal Scottish Despite its longevity it remains relatively little known, and yet its Staff and Council Members have gone on to make quite an impact on Scotland and the wider world. One became UK Prime Minister, another a Maharaja. Others were responsible for epic rescue dramas such as the Emin Pasha Relief expedition and the Endurance expedition of 1914-1917. Another designed Tel Aviv and saved the Edinburgh Old Town from demolition.

These men and women have promoted, funded and run
over 300 research expeditions, most notably the Scotia expedition and their numbers include two of the greatest British polar explorers of all time. Glaciers, ice shelves, seas, large stretches of land, animals, boats and even body parts have been named by (or named after) people connected to the Society. And closer to home, the Society’s members and council have helped establish countless charities and organisations such as the Scottish Ski Club, Edinburgh Zoo, the National Trust for Scotland, the National Parks Campaigns, or forums on flooding, geodiversity and most recently the campaign to retain Earth Sciences in the Scottish curriculum.

This Society of members, academics, explorers, business leaders, scientists, thinkers and educators has inspired generations of people in all walks of life. And they have awarded around 250 medals to, and run over 4,500 public talks by, many inspiring people with the most incredible stories to tell. The RSGS’s fellows and medallists have traversed every continent, climbed every major mountain and range, navigated every ocean and crossed every desert. They have followed rivers from source to sea, and walked, run, cycled, rowed and sailed around the world. They have re-enacted epic boat journeys, protected wild animals and wild landscapes around the world, and discovered medical cures and archaeological remains.

On July 21st 1884, aged just 24, John George Bartholomew, a map maker from Edinburgh was walking on the beach in North Berwick with David Livingstone’s daughter Agnes Bruce, and persuaded her of the need for a Scottish Geographical Society. They together with James Geikie, Professor of Geology at Edinburgh University, founded the Society. The rest as they say is history. 

Today the society, headquartered in Perth, still runs nearly 100 talks a year all over Scotland with the latest generation of inspiring scientists, explorers, adventurers and educationalists. It works with Scottish schools, runs a visitor and education centre and houses one of the most fascinating collections of maps, books and other artefacts. Its core remit remains to inspire people to want to know more about their world. If the next 130 can be as productive as the last, this really should be achievable.


All images copyright of RSGS

Currency and exchange rates

By Professor Gavin McCrone FRSGS. This article first appeared in the spring 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.


There are reasons for thinking that a small independent country may sometimes do better economically than if it were a region of a larger country. This applies particularly if it has a very different economic structure or is at a different stage of development. The ability to tailor economic policies closely to its needs can give it a better chance of success than relying on the one-size-fits-all policies of a larger state. This applies particularly to the exchange rate. A country has to pay its way with its trading partners, and movements in the exchange rate are one of the principle ways in which it ensures it is competitive.

A region does not have to do this: its surplus or deficit will be evened out by the larger country of which it is a part. A competitive exchange rate can ensure that there is investment in the economy and low unemployment, but a region has to work with whatever the exchange rate happens to be for the larger economy, whether or not that suits it.

Scotland’s economy, without North Sea oil, is similar to and closely integrated with that of the UK as a whole. Independence would affect that integration and would involve costs. Moreover, because of the substantial but declining income from the North Sea, Scotland could be subject to very different pressures from the rest of the UK. Both its balance of payments and the government’s budget would be subject to volatility.

The Scottish Government’s declared policy is to retain monetary union with the rest of the UK after independence. This is a central issue in the independence debate, but the intervention by the Chancellor in a speech in Edinburgh in February, and the rejection of a currency union by spokesmen for the other two main UK parties, make it most unlikely that a formal union, whereby the Bank of England would act as central bank and lender of last resort for both countries, would be negotiable. There could be advantages in an independent Scotland having its own currency, even if it were pegged to the pound to give it greater stability, because it would mean that the exchange rate could be altered in a major crisis.

But it would also mean that Scotland’s currency would be exposed to many of the pressures of a petro-currency. Moreover, those doing business across the border with the rest of the UK would face transactions costs and at least some degree of exchange risk. This would also apply to those who had mortgages or pensions in sterling. A mortgage with a UK lender would be in sterling, while the asset against which it was provided was in pounds Scots. To avoid the exchange risk, borrowers would need to remortgage with a Scottish lender or a branch of a UK lender able to lend in Scots currency.

This is just one of a number of major uncertainties as Scotland goes into the referendum. Another is whether or how quickly Scotland could become a member of the European Union in its own right, thereby safeguarding its position in the EU single market. Would it have to take its place in a queue of candidate countries seeking membership, with much uncertainty over its position in the meantime? Or would it be possible to retain membership by the quicker and easier process of treaty amendment? Whatever the outcome, it would have to have the agreement of the 28 existing member states, any one of which could exercise a veto.

Scottish Ministers have rightly pointed to Scotland’s wealth of resources, not only in offshore oil and gas but also in renewable energy. But, with the exception of hydro electricity, renewable energy has had to be subsidised by consumers across the whole UK. Onshore wind power is becoming more economic and, if present trends continue, may be competitive later in this decade. But this does not apply to offshore wind or to wave and tidal power, which are still at a very early stage of development. Would consumers in the rest of the UK be prepared to continue subsidising renewable power in Scotland after it became an independent state? This would probably depend on whether they could get the electricity they require from other cheaper sources.

These are just some of the uncertainties as the date of the referendum approaches. It is only realistic to accept that much is likely still to remain unknown as people go to cast their votes.

A conspiracy of silence?

By Professor Jim Gallagher.This article first appeared in the spring 2014 edition of the RSGS's magazine, The Geographer.

The thing most ignored in the present Scottish independence debate is the thing which is most likely to happen after it. There is something of a conspiracy of silence about the new tax powers which will come to the Scottish Parliament as a result of the Scotland Act 2012. In fact, they represent a substantial addition to the powers of the Scottish Parliament, all the more remarkable in a state with such a tradition of fiscal centralisation as the United Kingdom.

When the Scottish Parliament was created in 1999, it built upon the foundation of administrative devolution which had grown up over the previous century or more. Most of the domestic functions of government in Scotland were decentralised, to a territorial Secretary of State. This in its turn was built on the preservation of the separate Scottish legal system, educational system, and church since the Act of Union in 1707.

The Scottish Office that administered the services had an immensely wide range of responsibilities: health, education, justice, transport, economic development, agriculture, and many others. Indeed, virtually the same range of responsibilities as the Scottish Parliament has today. But it was, in the jargon, a spending department of government: it disbursed monies or spent them directly, and was funded by UK taxation collected by the Treasury. The only exceptions were local taxes such as council tax and nondomestic rates.

In consequence, the Parliament created in 1999 was lopsided. It had immensely wide spending responsibilities – as wide as those in any federal state – but only vestigial taxing responsibilities. The UK is internationally unusual in that virtually all taxes are collected and gathered centrally by the Treasury. Most other countries, and certainly federal countries, have some decentralised taxation.

Against this background and in response to the election of an SNP minority government in 2007, the UK Labour Government, supported by a majority of members of the Scottish Parliament, decided to set up the Calman Commission, to review the powers of the Parliament and in particular its fiscal accountability. The analysis was thorough, setting out how the Scottish Parliament fitted into the wider UK union, and how it could be made more fiscally accountable by tax decentralisation.

The essential recommendation was that a proportion (about one third) of the Scottish Parliament’s
budget should be funded by taxes it levied itself, rather than by transfers from the UK Exchequer. A number of smaller taxes, such as stamp duty land tax, were recommended for wholesale devolution. But the main recommendation was that income tax – one of the three biggest taxes, and the most perceptible – should become a shared tax, levied on the same tax base by both the Westminster and Holyrood parliaments.

As a result, the rate of UK income tax applying in Scotland would be reduced by 10p in the pound, and the grant to the Scottish Parliament from Westminster reduced by a commensurate amount. The Scottish Parliament could then choose an income tax rate of its own, and would receive the resultant revenue. So the Parliament would be required to make a tax decision, and would control the total of its budget by setting a higher or lower rate.

These recommendations were accepted by all the main UK parties, and despite opposing it until the last moment, the SNP majority administration elected in 2011 eventually consented, and the scheme was enacted as the Scotland Act 2012. The legislation will be put into effect in 2016, so that the Scottish Parliament elected then (assuming Scotland has decided against independence) will have substantial income tax powers.

Three things are remarkable about this. First, the UK is probably the most fiscally centralised state in the Western world, and agreement to decentralise roughly half of the income tax in Scotland might not have been predicted. Second, the process of securing agreement to substantial constitutional change across two general elections (Scottish and UK) and two changes of administration (in Edinburgh and London) was without precedent. It shows a remarkable degree of careful policy-making against a background of virulent political disagreement.

The third remarkable thing is how little this is remarked upon. During the referendum debate, it obviously suits the SNP to argue that the present constitutional arrangements are inflexible and fail to give Scotland powers it might reasonably expect. So they never talk about the Scotland Act 2012. It’s perhaps less obvious that each of the pro-union parties – who should be able to take credit for a creative policy change that moves substantially in the direction of median Scottish opinion, which is in favour of more devolution – do not appear to be giving it the attention it merits, even as they consider whether there is scope for yet more change.

But if the polls are correct, and the Scottish people decide against independence, we have a very clear picture of what Scotland’s territorial constitution will be like in 2016, and this will surely set the pattern for any further development of the devolution settlement. Devolution will move on to its next phase.

Professor Jim Gallagher, Research Fellow in Politics, Nuffield College, University of Oxford

Celebrating Croll: Who was James Croll?

James Croll is one of those remarkable Victorian characters who made a fundamental contribution to our current understanding of science, but who is now all but forgotten except in specialist circles.

James Croll

Coming from a modest rural background near Perth, Croll was largely self-taught through reading, his enthusiasm for learning sparked by The Penny Magazine of The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

For much of his life he struggled with illness, and he held a succession of different jobs, from millwright to shopkeeper to insurance salesman. It was in 1859, when he became a janitor at the Anderson College in Glasgow and gained access to its extensive library, that he became actively involved in pushing the boundaries of glaciology.

His first paper on glacial epochs was published in 1864, and in 1875 he published the landmark Climate and Time, the distillation of his theory of ice ages and Earth’s orbit. In all, he wrote dozens of scientific papers, amongst other things explaining global oceanic circulation, calculating the age of the sun, developing a theory of evolution, and remarkably presciently predicting the thickness of the unexplored Antarctic Ice Sheet.

“I remember well that, before I could make headway in physical astronomy,… I had to go back and study the laws of motion and fundamental principles of mechanics. In like manner I studied pneumatics, hydrostatics, light, heat, electricity and magnetism. I obtained assistance from no-one. In fact there were none of my acquaintances who knew anything whatever about these subjects.” - James Croll

The Celebrating Croll appeal launched last week. The RSGS is aiming to rejuvenate the outdoor space and the interpretation panels in our visitor and education centre in the Fair Maid's House., to give visitors more to see, maximise the space available to visiting groups, and to celebrate the legacy of James Croll.

Read more about the campaign, and how you can help.

Earth Science Education Scotland Campaign

The Royal Scottish Geographical Society is backing a new campaign to promote, extend and maintain the level of Earth science content in Scottish high schools.

Earth Science Education Scotland

Earth Science Education Scotland is a wide group of people who are interested in Earth science in Scotland. Supported by the RSGS, they have come together due to concern at the very low content of Earth science in the Scottish schools’ curriculum.

Earth Science Education Scotland are currently lobbying the Scottish Government, Education Scotland, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to ensure that the planned cessation of the Higher geology certificate in 2015 is postponed until a new Earth science Higher is created. A recent survey undertaken by the group has demonstrated the enthusiasm for teaching the subject at higher level in Scottish schools.

Find out more about Earth Science Education Scotland by visiting the campaign website, which explains the background to the campaign.

http://www.earthscienceeducationscotland.com

Nae Mair Skyscraper Weans? Glasgow’s Red Road Flats and the 2014 Commonwealth Games. - Gerry Mooney

Nae Mair Skyscraper Weans?

Glasgow’s Red Road Flats and the 2014 Commonwealth Games

Gerry Mooney
Faculty of Social Sciences
The Open University in Scotland
(May 2014)

I’m a skyscraper wean, I live on the nineteenth flair,
But I’m no gaun oot to play ony mair,
Since we moved to Castemilk, I’m wasting away,
‘Cause I’m getting one less meal every day.

O ye canne fling pieces oot a twenty-story flat,
Seven-hundred hungry weans will testify to that,
If it’s butter, cheese or jeely, if the bried is plain or pan,
The odds against it reaching earth are ninety-nine to one.

The Jeelie Piece Song (Skyscraper Wean)
Adam MacNaughton)


2014 Commonwealth Games Controversy

Arguably most large sporting events around the world today attract some degree of opposition and criticism. Witness events in Rio throughout 2013 and 2014 ahead of the football World Cup 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016. On a smaller scale, but nonetheless important reflecting as it does conflicting views of its value to the city, the Glasgow Commonwealth Games of 2014 has also attracted opposition, opposition that has been galvanised by a well-publicised proposal for the opening ceremony announced in early April 2014.

That Glasgow’s iconic Red Road Flats would be demolished as part of the opening ceremony of the Twentieth Commonwealth Games in July and August 2014 generated criticism that few might have been able to predict, given the very particular history and unpopularity of the Red Road Flats.  The ceremony will take place a few miles away at Celtic Park, where live footage of the demolition was to be beamed on huge screens. For the City Council and Commonwealth Games leaders, this demolition was intended to signal the new world, the new age that Glasgow has apparently entered. For the leader of the Labour-controlled Glasgow Council, the proposed demolition was to be ‘symbolic of a changing Glasgow’; showing that the city has a bright future, the legacy of the games.  But critics of the demolition observed that the demolition could in fact be read in a dramatically different way. 

Within days of the proposal being announced it had already attracted considerable opposition from community activists, artists, politicians and a petition started within hours of the news attracted well over 16,000 signatures. The proposal caused a furore that extended beyond Glasgow. Scottish and UK newspapers have carried the story as have local TV and radio stations and the BBC online news site and various social media sites have been heavily populated with Red Road commentary and stories.

The Red Road Flats generate sharply opposing views: loathed by some, defended by others. The fact that many people were prepared to campaign against proposals to demolish the Red Road Flats as part of the Games’ opening ceremony came as a surprise to many. What is it about these high flats in particular that has aroused such passions?

The Red Road Flats in Historic Context

Glasgow built more public sector high rise housing developments than any other city in Western Europe in the post-1945 era. In an effort to address historic problems of slum and overcrowded housing, by far the worst in the UK, the city embarked on a large-scale programme of high rise developments. One of the earliest manifestations of this was the Moss Heights development located in the Cardonald area, 6 miles to the south west of the city centre. Constructed in 1953, they presented a vision of housing for the city which would dramatically alter not only the skyline, but also reshaped the social geography of housing in Glasgow. Together with a massive programme of low rise housing estate development across the city, contained primarily in the four large ‘peripheral’ housing estates on the city’s outer-edges (in Castlemilk, Drumchapel, Easterhouse and Pollok), by the 1970s Glasgow Corporation was the largest public sector landlord in Western Europe with over 185,000 houses on its books and well over 60% of the population of the city living in publicly rented housing. 

The Red Road development rapidly became the iconic high-rise housing scheme in Glasgow, if not Scotland as a whole. Located in the north east of the city, they were the highest public sector tower blocks in Europe at the time when the first tenants took up habitation in 1971. Built between 1964 and 1969, the eight towers, which ranged from 28-31 storeys high, were to house almost 5,000 people. At almost 300 feet high, the views from the upper floors of the blocks extended well beyond Glasgow to the mountains of Argyll to the West, Stirlingshire to the north and almost to Edinburgh in the East. The blocks are readily visible to people arriving in Glasgow from the North and from the East by train or car from the M80 and M8 motorways.

For their new tenants the Red Road Flats, together with Glasgow’s other newly built housing schemes, represented a vast improvement on the slum housing they had lived in previously. It was not just the views that attracted people, but the running hot and cold water, inside bathrooms and separate kitchens which were absent in older tenements. The flats are then symbolic of an era in which state provision of affordable housing to rent was highly desirable to the working-class.

However, the architecture and construction of the blocks, steel-framed concrete slabs in a style since then referred to as ‘Modernist Brutalism’, was the subject of early complaints, reflected in difficult to heat and draughty houses. It wasn’t too long before the Red Road became not a hallmark of Glasgow’s advance in public sector housing design but a symbol of poorly constructed and hard to let council housing.

At a surface level, the proposed demolition of the Red Road flats exemplifies the argument that Glasgow's extensive post-war investment in poorly designed and built high-rise council housing was a strategic social and economic blunder. But there is a deeper level to the symbolism of the demolition of Red Road. It somehow manages to cue to a wide audience that it is waste of time and money to try and provide council housing for working-class people. It always ends up in failure.

But who is responsible for this failure?  Not the architects and town-planners that grabbed their opportunity to make vainglorious statements in design terms. Not the engineers who designed the building systems which promised to house the workers in their millions. Not the politicians who had their palms greased to buy these building systems. It was the tenants' fault that these developments didn't work! 

Of course, while few are saying this explicitly, in the case of unsuccessful council housing, it is the victim who is blamed. The Red Road – like similar housing developments across the rest of Scotland and the UK – is a prime case in point. The message of the imagery of demolition is simple: it really is not worth the effort or money involved in housing construction of this type. 

The demolition of the Red Road flats actually symbolises the current UK governments’ (as well as for the previous New Labour administrations) efforts to ensure that social housing is a residual category fit only for people with multiple and intractable problems: the chronically poor, drug-addicts and alcoholics, the mentally-ill, the homeless, refugees and asylum-seekers. 

At the start of this piece I have included Adam MacNaughton’s Jeelie Piece song. It is a song much loved in Glasgow because it captures the isolation that many tenants experienced in life in the high rises of Glasgow. However, it also reflects the positive aspects of life in such schemes. Skyscraper Weans no longer enjoyed the opportunity to run in and out of their homes seeking sustenance, especially when the lifts were often out of action. The Jeelie Piece Song reflected also the sense of isolation that many of the residents of the high rise blocks felt. In what became the official mantra of many of the studies of such developments, there was an absence of ‘community’, and the tenants often remembered the close-knit communities of the older tenemental districts with nostalgia. While no doubt there was a considerable romanticisation of the past in such views, nonetheless most high rise housing developments were constructed with little thought given to the provision of community or leisure facilities. For the then Glasgow Corporation, the housing mission throughout the post-War period was ‘build the maximum number of houses in the shortest possible time’.

Featuring Red Road

As Lynsey Hanley highlighted in her evocative book Estates, council estates do not often appear in a positive way in word, film or song. In the last few decades, council housing has come to be seen as second-best housing, relegated to a residual status for the most impoverished sections of society. Such estates have become emblematic of all that is claimed to be problematic about contemporary Britain – symbolic of what David Cameron has called the ‘broken society’ (see Mooney, 2009; Hancock and Mooney, 2013).

Many would probably represent the Red Road development in such a way. It has appeared in numerous films, television dramas and documentaries such as Scottish Television’s Taggart police detective series, and the Bafta-winning Red Road (2006) directed by Andrea Arnold. While both deal with the darker side of Red Road life, they have contributed to the Red Roads’ notoriety. Further, many other artists, writers and filmmakers who made it the subject of their work. Art exhibitions, planning, architectural and photography projects have taken the Red Road as their inspiration or focal point. Other projects have included oral history interviews with some of the earliest residents and other attempts to capture some of the more positive aspects of life in the flats. Alison Irvine’s book, This Road Is Red is a collection of semi-fictional stories based on anecdotes from real-life residents over the 50-year plus history of the estate.

Planners, architects, housing researchers and other academics have long investigated different aspects of the Red Road development. Few council estates can claim such attention and importantly, much of this is not of the negative ‘council estate porn’ type that is prevalent in the media in recent years, such as BBC Scotland’s The Scheme and Channel 4s Benefit Streets.

The Beginning of the End for the Red Road

Arguing that the Red Road Flats are iconic does not mean that criticism of the blocks should be muted in any way. Of course they did address a desperate housing need for successive generations of Glaswegians and, more recently, for students and newly arrived refugees, by the end of the twentieth century they had gained a reputation as unattractive places to live, and many of the flats were vacant for a considerable time. With two blocks already demolished, the plans for the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony was to see a further five blocks demolished – live! The one block to be preserved, at least until 2017, was intended to accommodate refugees, giving the strong impression that this kind of housing is suitable only for people ‘of that kind’!

The Commonwealth Games and Red Road Flats Controversy: Why is it Important?

As has proved to be the case with other ‘flagship’ sporting events, the Twentieth Commonwealth Games, Glasgow 2014, has not been without controversy. Finding the money to stage such a huge event is one point of contention – not least in the context of ‘austerity’ and wide-scale budget cuts and reductions in public services and funding. As has been the case in the past, some people have been forcibly removed to make way for new ‘legacy’ sporting and related developments. New private sector investment opportunities are promised on the back of the Games, while new roads and infrastructure developments have already been put in place around the East End of Glasgow in particular (the East End ‘Regeneration Route for example) to enhance the attractiveness of previously derelict areas for capital accumulation.

‘Legacy’ has become the by-word for such event; how will large sporting festivals contribute to the longer prosperity of a host city?  Who is it that decides what should be the legacy? The people of Glasgow or corporate and political elites (See Glasgow Games Monitor; Gray and Mooney, 2009; Paton, Mooney and McKee, 2012). While some social housing will emerge from the Games, in the shape of the athlete’s village in the Dalmarnock area, the number of units to be made available will fall well short of early promises.

The idea of a city ‘reborn’, a city ‘renewed’ is being signified, it is argued, by the demolition of the Red Road flats as ‘Glasgow’ looks ahead with renewed vitality to a bright new future. But this also symbolises the destruction of what, for many, is not only an important part of Glasgow’s working class history – but also of the idea that public sector housing provision has a crucial role to play in meeting housing needs today – needs that are acute across Glasgow and much of the UK. For critics then, claims about regeneration and renewal are vacuous; legacy is a meaningless term. The Commonwealth Games and the planned demolition of the Red Road flats resonate as a classic bread-and-circuses stunt.

It will come as no surprise that such criticisms have been rejected by those responsible for the Glasgow Games:

This is about more than creating an iconic moment for the Opening Ceremony; it is about the next step in the regeneration of one of Glasgow's most famous communities. It symbolises the changing face of the city over the years and recognises our proud social history. Glasgow's Opening Ceremony is right to celebrate that history, but we will do so in a sensitive manner.

We have worked with former residents for the last six years to get the story of Red Road. This is their story and the voice of real Glaswegians should rightly be heard during the ceremony and the story of Red Road should be shared with the world. Of course, this is one small part of a much larger show that will entertain, inspire and show Glasgow in a spectacular light.

The demolition of the flats is not about social failure - in fact, the opposite is true. The flats were once the future of social housing in the city and over the years have been home to thousands of families. We are celebrating their role in our history and want to make sure their role is properly marked.

(Bridget McConnell, Chief Executive of Glasgow Life, quoted in the Glasgow Evening Times, April 7, 2014)

While supporters of the Commonwealth Games claim the demolition of the Red Roads flats as an icon of the ’new’ Glasgow, critics observe that it is also a symbol of the present government’s blatant attempt to destroy the whole concept of council housing. The destruction of council housing estates, not matter how widely they are welcomed and by whom, is not just an act of physical destruction but also implicitly an attack on council tenants, or of the idea of council tenants. They belong to a welfare and state dependent population that for many politicians in the three main UK parties – are best confined to a by-gone era: this is the picture of council housing as ‘the land that time forgot’! It is also the marginalisation of a particular history – of particular working class histories; housing is not just bricks and mortar – there is a historical voice in each and every estate – one that is sharply out of step with the top-down voice of a Glasgow renewed.

Towards A More Progressive Housing Legacy

Glasgow has had a longer history of severe housing problems than any other in the UK. That the local authority and 2014 Games leaders should seek to celebrate the opening of the 2014 Commonwealth Games with the demolition of its most (in)famous post-war housing scheme, has attracted considerable criticism, is to be welcomed.

However, there is another housing history in Glasgow which political elites would rather forget. Arguably Glasgow did more than any other city in Britain to ensure the provision of council-housing for the working-class. The famous 1915 Glasgow Rent Strike was crucially important to the provisions of the 1919 Housing & Town Planning Act, which established the principle of the state’s provision of housing. The protracted struggles of Clydesiders over the rents and housing issues ultimately paved the way for state housing provision as a norm – a norm that was to last until the late twentieth century. These are the struggles worth celebrating; this is the legacy of history locally. While Glasgow’s leaders seek to destroy or at least marginalise this legacy, it is instructive that a campaign is also underway today to commemorate Mary Barbour, whose army of working class women took to the streets of Glasgow’s tenement districts during the First World War to fight against rapacious private landlords.

A more fitting legacy for Glasgow would be the launch of a new era of good quality and affordable public sector housing for rent, under the control of democratically elected politicians. Well-built, low rise or high rise but including the very social amenities that were overlooked in previous developments, such as at the Red Road. This does not represent a return to some mythical or golden past but of the recognition that the provision of housing for all is the mark of a socially just society. The Scottish Government have already abolished right to buy for new tenants of social housing and embarked on a small but symbolically significant programme of social housing new build. As Scotland looks ahead to a future that may involve full Independence, or of further devolution, the mark of the good Scottish society will be to end housing problems for once and for all. Now that would be a legacy worth celebrating, would it not?

References

Neil Gray and Gerry Mooney (2011) ‘Glasgow’s New Urban Frontier: ‘Civilising’ the Population of ‘Glasgow East’’, City, 15, 1, pp. 4-24.

Lynn Hancock and Gerry Mooney (2013) ‘‘Welfare ghettos’ and the ‘‘Broken Society’’: Territorial Stigmatization in the Contemporary UK’, Housing, Theory and Society, 30, 1, pp. 46-64.
Lynsey Hanley (2007) Estates, Granta.
Alison Irvine (2012) This Road Is Red, Luath Press.
Gerry Mooney (2009) ‘The ‘Broken Society’ Election: Class Hatred and the Politics of Poverty and Place in Glasgow East’, Social Policy and Society, 8, 4, pp. 1-14.
Kirsteen Paton, Gerry Mooney and Kim McKee (2012) ‘Class, Citizenship and Regeneration: Glasgow and the Commonwealth Games 2014’, Antipode, 44, 4, September, pp. 1470-1489.

Other sources:
http://www.bestlaidschemes.com/
http://athousandflowers.net/
Glasgow 2014 Games Monitor http://gamesmonitor2014.org/

Apprentice Writers in Residence Needed

Do you have an interest in Creative Writing and would like to develop your creative writing skills? Are you aged between 16-19 years of age and live in the Perth and Kinross area?

If you answer yes then this commission is for you. The Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) will place you with an established Professional Writer to develop your skills in creative writing using the RSGS’s collections as inspiration to explore the story of RSGS and the heritage that it cares for.

Apprentice writer in residence - a commitment of one or two days per week on site with further work in your own time and place. The project will take place in June and July 2014

Please read carefully the commission that is available. To apply please include the following:

1. CV (no more than one page of A4) – this should clearly detail your education and any relevant employment or experience to date.
2. A short personal statement on your interest and suitability in applying for a commission – this can be a portfolio of images/artwork, a video, written material (no more than 500 words)

Please apply in writing to
Sara Ann Kelly
Perth Museum and Art Gallery
sakelly@pkc.gov.uk
Please send your CV by 12pm, 16 May 2014

You don’t get paid for the placement, but your travel expenses will be reimbursed.

RSGS Logo

Applications Closed: Job Opportunity at RSGS: Temporary Office Assistant

APPLICATIONS FOR THIS POSITION ARE NOW CLOSED

We're looking for a Temporary Office Assistant to join our small team at our Perth HQ for three months, full time. See the details of Main Duties, Specific Tasks and Person Specification below.

Please send your CV and Cover Letter detailing your suitability for the role to Mike Robinson at mike.robinson@rsgs.org

Main Duties

·        Responding to telephone, postal and e-mail enquiries ·        Welcoming visitors and answering door enquiries ·        Co-ordinating volunteer rota ·        Managing meeting room bookings ·        Diary management for office and CEO ·        Helping set up for meetings, events & room hire ·        General administrative duties including filing, typing, correspondence and record keeping ·        Maintaining membership database and producing membership cards ·        Issuing papers and minute taking for Board Meetings and other committees

Specific Tasks & Responsibilities

·        First point of contact for membership, groups and general enquiries ·        Administration and co-ordination of Membership records, & correspondence ·        Maintaining central computer and physical filing system

Person Specification
Skills/Aptitude	Essential	Desirable
Good verbal & written communication skills Numeracy Computer literacy (Microsoft Office) Experience of database software (Access) Flexible attitude to work Good customer focus Administrative experience Experience of working in a small team or for a charity Good at dealing with public, polite manner	ü ü ü ü ü ü ü	ü            ü

Temporary Full Time position for 3 Months. Salary £12,000 - £16,000. Normal working days Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm, though some flexibility may be required for specific events.

Ed Stafford will share the extraordinary story of his walk down the Amazon River, from source to sea, in a talk at Perth Concert Hall on Monday 24th March. Ed’s journey down the Amazon, which took 860 days to complete, was the first time in history that anyone has walked the entire length of the longest river on Earth.

    

Ed and his friend Luke Collyer set out on this monumental challenge in 2008. They believed it would take them one year and would involve walking 4,000 miles. In the end, two and a half years and 6,000 miles later, only Ed of the original two, would make it to journey’s end on the Atlantic. Along the way he had climbed an 18,000 feet mountain; witnessed and filmed never-before-seen tribal ceremonies; eaten cactus, tortoises and tapirs; been mistaken for a human body part trafficker; and met a local guide named Cho, who, after Luke’s departure, accompanied Ed on his mammoth trek

.

The talk will take place at 7:30pm in Perth Concert Hall on Monday 24th March. Tickets are £10 for adults, £7 for under 18s, students and RSGS members. Tickets are available from the Horsecross Box Office on 01738 621031 or at www.horsecross.co.uk.

To find out more about becoming an RSGS member contact enquiries@rsgs.org. The Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) is an educational charity which promotes an understanding of the natural environment and human societies, and their interactions, making the connections between people, places and the planet, and aiming to inspire positive long-term change.

 More information on Ed Stafford can be found at www.edstafford.org Attached photographs are copyright Pete McBride

Response to 'Deer Management: Getting Out of the Rut' from Autumn 2013 Geographer

We are delighted to receive feedback on any articles in our magazine, The Geographer.  In the Autumn 2013 edition, which was focussed on Forestry, we featured an article on the subject of Deer Management by Mike Daniels.  Mike Daniels is Head of Land and Science at the John Muir Trust, you can read his article Deer management : getting out of the rut here.

Member George J. Strachan, who is a retired Principal Teacher of Geography and former keeper/stalker, made the following comments on the article:

"The Autumn issue of ‘The Geographer’ was interesting and well-informed, but the article by Mike Daniels on deer management cannot go unchallenged on a number of points.

On red deer numbers:

The accuracy of the John Muir Trust (JMT) figures of 150,000 red deer in the 1960s to over 400,000 today are open to dispute.  WWF state  400,000 (Hunt 2003, p.5), but do refer to a lower figure of 350,000 (Nature, 2004).  Putman (2012) gives 360,000 to 400,000 in 2010.  G.K. Whitehead believed the NCC’s 1961 total of 155,000 to be an under-estimate.  He arrived at a figure of 188,850 and even considered that an under-estimate, since his calculations omitted hill sheep farms, common grazings and grouse moors lying outwith recognised red deer territories (methodology used is given in detail in Whitehead, 1964).  Even if a higher red deer total in the early 1960s could be substantiated, the fact remains that the deer population suffered severe decline as a result of heavy culls by contractors during the War and poaching post-war when dam construction was on-going in the glens. Only now are deer numbers probably approaching pre-war levels.

But total figures conceal regional differences.  The SPICe Briefing on wild deer in Scotland gives red deer counts in selected areas (Edwards & Kenyon, 2013, table 1).  Wide disparities in % change between the two most recent counts are apparent.  The Monadhliaths, for example, record a drop of 10% since 2004 to present ; Knoydart 26% down from 1996 to 2003 ; West Sutherland down 14% from 1999 to 2006 to mention but a few.  Over the Highlands & Islands the drop averages 5%.  A number rise including an anomalous increase in South Uist – 884% over a 17 year period from 1983!  This figure, if nothing else, backs up the comment in the WWF report that ‘deer numbers are notoriously difficult to estimate’ (Hunt, 2003, p.5).  Yet of more importance are local deer densities and carrying capacities.  A limited number of areas are pressure points ; environmental damage in the majority of areas across the Highlands is not a problem.

"Red Deer Stag" by mozzercork is licensed under CC by 2.0

On forest and woodland regeneration:

The work of Donald McVean (Johnston & Balharry, 2001) on regenerating the Coille na Glas Leitre pinewoods in the Beinn Eighe NNR found that hindrances to regeneration were far more complex than could be attributed simply to deer browsing.  Deep heather prevents the seed from taking hold, as do bracken and rhododendrons.  The present dislike of muirburn has led to rank heather clothing much of the Highlands.  Woodland regeneration is prevented and the potential for major moor and forest fires increased.  Two years ago, for example, the NTS Torridon estate suffered a catastrophic fire which swept along Liathach’s south face, a fire which could have been prevented by a programme of strip burning undertaken over previous years.  Far from being inimical to forest regeneration, recently burnt ground cover provides the perfect seedbed for a whole variety of trees.  Judicious burning should be given more consideration by wildlife organisations.  They have a lot to learn from the old keepers.

Sheep are far more destructive of woodland habitats than deer.  In the area of South Gairloch red deer seldom came into the oak and birch woods in any numbers except in periods of extreme winter conditions, e.g. winters of 1961/62 and 1962/63.  On the other hand sheep grazed them continuously ; over 5000 sheep were hefted on the Gairloch Conservation Unit (GCU), over three times the number of deer present.  Even the WWF correctly highlight the need for sheep to be taken into account (Hunt, 2003, p.5).  Mountain hares and rabbits also add to the problem.

Yes, deer browse on trees.  Putman (2012) reckoned that 15-20% of young trees suffered some damage.  This concurs with McVean’s earlier estimate of roughly 25% tree seedlings destroyed by deer damage (Johnston & Balharry, 2001).  This leaves 75% to grow to maturity, surely sufficient.  In areas where planting had taken place, McVean found that the percentage eaten was much higher.  It appears that they smell the freshly turned earth, hence the need to fence.  That is certainly the case with rabbits and sheep, as any gardener will testify to.

On road accidents involving deer:

This is an emotive issue used by some organisations as an excuse to get rid of deer.  The fact is that, of all deer road casualties in Scotland during 2003-2005, 1204 (76.9%) involved  roe deer and 321 (20.5%) red deer out of a total of 1566 with sika and fallow accounting for the rest (Langbein, 2007).  The problem is that the ‘organisational finger’ is pointed at red deer with no distinction made as to which deer species dominates the figures.  Generally where deer do come down on to the road, signs have been erected to warn motorists.  Figures on accidents involving sheep should be given for comparative purposes.  I suspect sheep/vehicle collisions would be much higher across the Highlands than that of red deer.

On red deer mortalities due to starvation and exposure:

Frank Fraser Darling’s (1937) classic study of red deer discovered a 50% mortality rate among red deer calves.  While some was due to predation by foxes and eagles, most perished over the winter.  His figures concurred with those of Cameron (1923) on the Isle of Jura also at 50%.  Darling (1937) frequently found heavy parasitic infestation in calf carcases examined.  North American studies on deer have produced similar high calf mortality rates.  High deer mortalities are normal and very seldom related to overgrazing.  Statements such as ‘thousands of deer die every year from starvation and exposure’ (Daniels, 2013) are misleading and indeed mischievous.

On legislation and close seasons:

Three major pieces of legislation have been enacted in recent years affecting deer management – the Deer Scotland Act (1996), the Land Reform Act (2003) and the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act (2011).  All have retained the close seasons for deer shooting with good reason.  They are there for the purposes of preventing poaching, reducing disturbance of deer particularly during calving time and ensuring animals are in prime condition when culled.  Licences have always been obtainable for out-of-season culling from the Deer Commission (pre-2010) and the SNH (post-2010) when necessary.  There is no need to seek changes to the legislation.

On costs to the public purse related to deer management:

The value of deer stalking to the UK economy was reckoned at £105m in 2005, of which over 2/3rds was earned in Scotland.  The JMT claim the costs of deer stalking to the public purse run into tens of millions of pounds, but when their figures are examined there are inconsistencies.  Forestry Commission’s costs for deer fencing in 2012 was £5,127,452 and grants paid to landowners came to £3,174,200 – not tens of millions of pounds.  Not only that, the figures given for grants paid includes all participants, not just landowners (Parliamentary question: S4W-17136).  Similarly, the FCS costs are hedged around by caveats (Parliamentary question: S4W-17137).  Note too that red deer being seen and heard during the rut must add value  to the Scottish tourist trade.  As with all businesses, estates pay considerable taxation annually as do the 2520 stalkers and ancillary staff employed full-time on the estates.

On deer management groups:

I was personally involved in the establishment of the first deer management unit in 1967, the Gairloch Conservation Unit (GCU).  Six estates were affected including the Beinn Eighe NNR and the NTS Torridon Estate.  My own recollection of the GCU meetings were that they were most amicably conducted and led to annual deer counts conducted in the Spring. Most DMGs working within the voluntary principle do a similarly good job.  Statutory measures to bring DMGs into a legally binding framework would be counter-productive.  Essential to the success of deer management groups is good neighbourliness.  If one estate cannot work with the rest, the result is animosity.  Surely the majority view must prevail ; the others within the deer management group cannot be ruled one dissenting estate.

In conclusion:

The WANE Act was passed in 2011 and the whole matter of deer management was fully discussed.  Clearly, a couple of the members of the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee along with the JMT and the RSPB have felt that WANE did not meet with their agenda.  Surely in a democracy the majority verdict stands."   

Cameron A.G. (1923). The wild deer of Scotland. Edinburgh.

Clutton-Brock, T.H., Coulson, T. and Milner, J.M. (2004). Red deer stocks in the Highlands of Scotland. Nature, 429:261.

Daniels M. (2013). Deer management : getting out of the rut. The Geographer, Autumn Issue. RSGS.

Darling F.F. (1937).  A herd of red deer. Oxford University Press, corrected 1956.

Edwards T. & Kenyon W. (2013). SPICe Briefing : Wild Deer in Scotland. The Scottish Parliament.

Hunt. J. (2003). Impacts of wild deer in Scotland – How fares the public interest? Report to WWF Scotland and RSPB Scotland, Aberfeldy and Edinburgh.

Johnston J.L. & Balharry D. (2001). Beinn Eighe – the mountain above the wood, SNH publication, Birlinn Ltd.

Langbein J. (2007). Natural deer-vehicle collision project – England 2003-2005. Highways Agency, Research Report 07/1, data extracted from Table 11A.

Putman R. (2012).  Scoping the economic benefits and costs of wild deer and their management in Scotland. SNH Commissioned Report No. 526

Whitehead G.K. (1964). The deer of Great Britain and Ireland, Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Submitted by:

George J Strachan (Retd. PT Geography, Dingwall Academy and former keeper/stalker).