Battle of the Botanics - round two.
Great Western Road is to be bathed in "white light" and given features including taxi marshals, cooling-off zones and portaloos, it emerged at the latest protest meeting over G1 Group's controversial Botanic Gardens nightclub plan.
The scheme - lacking a council about-face - will replicate in the heart of the West End the measures currently being used in a bid to control weekend violence and disorder in the city centre.
The radical initiative will in effect create a single lengthy drinking strip running all the way from the Botanic Gardens to Buchanan Street - split only by the dual carriageway nexus around St George's Cross and Charing Cross.
This plan, already sketched out at an earlier protest meeting in Hillhead Library, was argued by city council director of land services Robert Booth to be the way ahead in the development of late night leisure facilities in the area.
This claim was answered by shouting and abuse from many members of the audience.
However main speakers at the meeting concentrated on the G1 scheme, arguing variously that it would destroy the character of the park and drive council tax payers from the West End to suburbs like Bearsden.
Kelvin MSP Pauline McNeill, opposing the idea of a nightclub, said her principal concern was the proliferation of licences generally in the area.
She was at pains to make clear that she had strongly signalled her dismay at the way local licensing is developing during a meeting with city council leader Stephen Purcell. Fellow Labour MSP Ann McKechin sent a letter to reiterate the opposition she had voiced at the previous meeting.
SNP councillor Alex Dingwall, to rousing applause, said it was outrageous that the council "could not find even "£2m" to fund a satisfactory visitor centre for the Gardens - this was the estimated sum required for an earlier and more modest visitor centre plan, which was dropped when Scottish Enterprise declared it couldn't provide the necessary funding.
Around 300 people packed the main lecture hall in the University of Glasgow's Boyd Orr building to vent their anger at G1 boss Stefan King's controversial plan to open a club as part of a scheme which would also see architect Sir James Millar's "Victorian extravaganza" nightclub recreated in facsimile on its original site.
A planned miniature railway on the site was dismissed as "a naff Disney attraction" and a woman lawyer claimed access routes in the park could be lost permanently within G1's development.
One objector claimed the streets would be "strewn with vomit and excrement - even more than they are at present."
Retired professor Keith Vickerman, chairman of Friends of the Botanic Gardens, argued that the Botanic Gardens were not "a park", and said they should be preserved as "a living museum" where children could enjoy open spaces and learn "social interaction" - and claimed a cafe serving "light lunches" would meet visitor expectations. He said the children's play area included in the plan wasn't needed.
Robert Booth, attempting amid shouted insults to explain the parameters of the G1 scheme on a large-scale diagram, argued that only fully-fledged catering facilities of the type already operated at showpiece London parks Kew Gardens and St James's Park could adequately serve the 600,000 visitors expected annually.
He said current catering provision - a burger van parked outside the park gates - was wholly inadequate for a key Glasgow visitor attraction.
And he repeatedly asserted that the Botanics' collection of orchids and other rare plants would be kept entirely indoors, and would be completely unaffected by the scheme.
But his claim that most visitors would arrive by coach or on foot, via subway, met with derision.
Throughout the frequently rowdy meeting Mr Booth was repeatedly heckled, abused and also insulted with grossly defamatory accusations as he tried to defend the authority's handling of the way the scheme has progressed.
The council was accused by one objector of behaving "in a clandestine manner" and there were lengthy arguments about the procedure used by the scrutiny committee in deciding that the original decision to grant G1 Group a 99-year lease for the site was appropriate.
Mr Booth, robustly defending the way the matter had been handled, pointed to other examples in Scotland where similar leases had been granted.
And he reminded the audience that of the three "expressions of interest" in developing the site two had subsequently been withdrawn, as they had been dependant on lottery funding. Only G1's plan would meet the capital cost of redeveloping the derelict platform site, estimated to be £7m.
However several present argued the mere £5,000 per year the council would receive from G1 was completely inadequate. He in turn argued the Botanics would be gaining a major development at no cost to the taxpayer.
One woman objector, taking a different tack, launched a lengthy tirade against residents for ignoring what she said was the current reality of the disused railway platform - which she said was a refuge for drug abusers. She was drowned out by a slow handclap from many of the audience.
However some opponents of the scheme put over their points clearly and calmly. A chest surgeon who lives near the Botanic Gardens told the audience: "I pay my council taxes by direct debit - I do my bit. But if you want me to 'do' your heart at 4am do you want me to have had no sleep, because some headbanger is punching his girlfriend and vomiting outside? Are people like me no longer needed?"
The two-hour session ended with the revelation by lawyer David Howat that a legal case is being considered against the council, involving consultation with an Advocate, and an appeal to the audience to launch an umbrella "stop Stefan" group consisting of community councils, residents and other groups.
Unlike the previous, smaller, meeting, G1 Group was not represented.
Throughout the meeting chairwoman Ann Laird attempted to keep order, and despite the barracking Mr Booth received over two hours most responded to her request for a round of applause for the way he had conducted his presentation.
The next stage of the scheme, he said, will be as and when G1 elects to submit an application for detailed planning consent. In order to operate as a nightclub he will also require a licence from the licensing board.
However several present, including Mr Booth and Pauline McNeill, erroneously described the board as "the licensing committee", which is part of Glasgow City Council but has nothing to do with drinks licensing - it handles taxi and other non-drink licences.
The licensing board is composed of councillors but is not part of the council, and cannot legally be influenced by non-member councillors: it is a quasi-judicial body entirely separate from the local authority, which has no jurisdiction over it.
These crucial distinctions, routinely misunderstood by the press, will become increasingly important when G1 attempts to negotiate the licensing consent hurdle.
Under the new Licensing Act, whose transition period begins in February, the scope for people to object is hugely increased - and in fact any objection from anybody in the world will have to be considered unless it can be deemed "vexatious and frivolous".
At a recent licensing conference the head of British Institute of Innkeeping Scotland, Janet Hood, said: "The Saskatchewan Temperance League will be able to object (to any licence application)."
The new Act also obliges premises to operate to detailed plans approved by the board.
None of the lawyers present appeared to understand the rudiments of licensing law, which is a specialised field. At the previous meeting Stefan King told the meeting - accurately - that any premises which caused trouble could easily see its licence being suspended (or ultimately revoked).
During the meeting it was claimed that Mr King could sell on his lease to another interest, which could then operate in a wholly different way, but in fact any new lessee would still be subject to lease conditions, and would still have to abide strictly to the terms of an operating plan approved by the licensing board.
* More on this issue, and the major arguments surrounding alleged overprovision of licensed premises in the West End, in future reports.
Roy Beers, 4th October, 2007.
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