Tollcross opens new housing development at Altyre Street

The Association took the opportunity to recognise one of its valued staff members who is retiring after over 20 years of service, asking Sheron Tuffnell to perform the opening ceremony.

The development provides 42 new homes and is a mix of flats, houses and townhouses. There has been an investment of over £12.50 million in the project, with £9.3m grant funding provided by Glasgow City Council and Unity Trust Bank providing the balance of £3.20m in private finance

Chris Elliot, chair, Tollcross Housing Association, said: “It’s great to see another brilliant new development completed by the Association. It’s such a demanding process for any Committee to deal with all the different aspects of a new build development, and it just seems to keep getting harder and harder. But we’re absolutely determined to keep working to ensure that everyone has a decent house.

“The design team and contractor have done a brilliant job delivering this high-quality scheme, on what was a really difficult site. We had mine shafts, underground workings and contamination to contend with. Just the usual now, for a site in the East End of Glasgow!”

McTaggart Construction was the main contractor, the architects were Page\Park, quantity surveyors for the project were Reid Associates. The engineers were Fairhurst, Raeburn Farquar Bowen served as landscape architects and D.A.Gilmour was the clerk of works services on the development.

Chris Elliot added: “We can’t thank them enough for the skill, flair, hard work and dedication they’ve all committed to the project. I think the finished development is a real credit to you all.

“And talking of hard work, a massive thank you to all of my fellow Committee members and the staff team at Tollcross, we’ve all worked so hard to make sure the Association got absolutely everything possible out of this project.

“Although there are some stunning flats in the development, there was a real emphasis on larger family homes in the housing mix, to help meet the demands of the Association’s own waiting list and to address the city-wide shortage of larger family homes.”

He concluded: “Of course, we need money, lots of money, to produce projects like this, and I must thank Glasgow City Council for their continued support in providing us with grant funding. It’s a tricky balance between keeping rents truly affordable and keeping the amount of grant funding down at an acceptable level, but we’ve always managed to get things to work one way or another.

“In the next few days, the remainder of the lucky people will get notification that they’ve been allocated one of these new properties and I’m sure they’ll be absolutely delighted with their new homes. But there’s no rest, we’re already well down the line with our next new build project at Belvidere.

“It never really stops does it, but that’s great because everyone at Tollcross Housing Association, staff team, Committee members and all our other volunteers are absolutely committed to providing high quality housing for everyone, somewhere our tenants are proud to call home!!!”

Janice Russell, managing director at McTaggart Construction, added: “We’re delighted to have partnered with Tollcross Housing Association to deliver this development, transforming a long-vacant brownfield site in Glasgow’s east end into 42 high quality, affordable homes.

“We’re proud to have achieved 100% of our community benefit targets, creating 5 jobs and supporting over 50 hours of education and work-based training for young people in the local area. That commitment to leaving a lasting legacy in the communities we build in is at the heart of everything we do.”