THE removal of Edwardian street lamps on a West End bridge has been called "a massive mistake" by a Glasgow MSP. 

Our sister title The Herald reports Ornate lampposts were removed from the Queen Margaret Bridge last week causing dismay among local residents, with a missing missing poster for the columns even appearing on the replacements.

Labour MSP Paul Sweeney has hit out at the decision and says the council needs to have a "more respectful approach" when dealing with the city's historic lighting features. 

A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council says they were removed due to "significant deterioration" and said two of the columns had been retained for possible refurbishment. 

The other three were described as "beyond repair".

READ NEXT: Glasgow City Chambers to light-up nightly with festive display

Mr Sweeney told our sister title The Herald:  "Glasgow City Council has trashed listed building status and conservation area status by removing these.

"Has the council street light replacement team just been blindly programmed to go around replacing street lighting without any consideration of heritage?

"There needs to be a more robust protocol for dealing with heritage light installations across the city and this should be a prompt for Glasgow to emulate cities like Edinburgh and Dublin which have a much more respectful approach to dealing with their heritage lighting than Glasgow."

Glasgow Times:

He continued: "We must look at the sensitive retention of heritage features. The street lamps are part of the listing of the bridge - it's a massive mistake that's been made.

"There can be no reason to take the base out if they had been properly looked after.

"The bases were originally designed to stop the corrosion caused by dogs urinating on them. Those big chunky bases were designed to give a rigidity to them.

"Our forebears in the early 20th century actually thought these things through."

READ NEXT: Everything you need to know about the Style Mile Christmas Carnival

The council spokesperson told our sister title The Herald: "An inspection of the lighting columns along Queen Margaret Drive found significant deterioration within their structures, which was not apparent from viewing the exterior of the decorative bases.

"To protect public safety, the older columns were removed as a matter of urgency and to ensure suitable street lighting remains in place, new lighting columns have been installed.

"We fully understand the enjoyment that residents take from the city’s built heritage and so the decorative bases of two lighting columns have been retained with a view to possible, future use.

"The decorative bases require to be refurbished and we will look carefully at how this might be achieved within existing resources.

"Three other columns are beyond repair but we will look to source suitable placements, based on the original design."