Meet the man on a mission to bring people back to Glasgow's East End

Martin McKay is on a mission to bring people back living and working in the East End of Glasgow.

In charge of Clyde Gateway, his job is to create conditions and provide premises to bring in investment and jobs, and he helps facilitate new housing.

The area is a huge part of Glasgow, stretching from Bridgeton to across the boundary with South Lanarkshire.

While the goals are all focused on the future, Mr McKay said: “History is important”.

As well as the big-ticket industrial sites and multi-million-pound investment deals, the value of heritage projects in the area cannot be understated.

Outside the Clyde Gateway HQ, itself part of a previous historic restoration project at Bridgeton Cross, the landmark umbrella or bandstand has been recently refurbished to its original glory.

In a series of detailed carvings on the paving around it, the industrial past of the East End from tanneries to weaving and engineering is depicted.

“It is important to people," he said.

“We try to reflect those values back in our work.”

The Forth Bridge was built by William Arrol, a local company, he is keen to tell.

The firm’s Dalmarnock iron works was a huge employer and Arrol also boasts Tower Bridge in London and the second Tay Bridge in Dundee among its achievements.

It is, however, the current and future projects that Clyde Gateway will be judged on.

One, at the moment, is Clyde Gateway East, where two new premises are being built to bring in high-end manufacturing jobs.

It will complete the development which sits on a historic former colliery site.

The overall site will provide 57,791 sq ft of high-specification space with car, EV and cycle parking.

The regeneration of the East End has been an elusive goal for decades, going back to at least the 1980s when the area was ravaged by the effects of deindustrialisation that affected many working-class communities in large cities.

It left acre after acre of vacant land and savage unemployment led to chronic depopulation as people left the area in search of work elsewhere.

In the earlier part of the last century, the area was densely populated, with factories and houses crammed into the streets with overcrowded tenements and smoke-belching industrial chimneys side by side.

The mission now is to return to having people living and working in the area but in far better, modern-day conditions.

Much of what once stood has been demolished but some architecturally important buildings have been retained.

The old gasworks red brick building is being turned into high-spec, smart tech, office space.  Around it, attractive-looking new terraced homes have been built and land is being prepared for others.

On the banks of the River Clyde at Dalmarnock, 562 new homes are full and others are under construction.

Mr McKay said Clyde Gateway does not take credit for those but it has had a facilitation role and a guiding hand in the overall masterplan for the area.

He has himself a link which gives him a personal stake in its fortunes. His family lived nearby in Gorbals before moving to East Kilbride where he grew up.

He said: “I feel a strong connection to the area. It makes me passionate about what we are doing here and respectful of the history.”

For decades, bringing meaningful change to the area was a stubborn nut to crack.

Mr McKay said two big interventions in this century made a difference.

The M74 extension and the Commonwealth Games provided a renewed impetus.

He said: “The lack of accessibility was a disincentive. Then the M74 and the Commonwealth Games were a catalyst.”

He adds: “If you’re going to do things at scale you need those catalysts.”

And people are now returning.

He said: “When Clyde Gateway started the population was 19,000 - it's now up to 27,000."

Manufacturing and trades are a big part of the mix but other types of business are also being attracted.

Mr McKay showcased one of the latest additions, Top Golf.

He said: “The M74 helped,” he said but with other areas keen to attract such a venue, he added, “We had to pitch to them”.

What they have secured is a highly popular leisure and social facility on a 25-year lease and 300 jobs.

Beside it is Rutherglen Links business park which is now also achieving its potential.

Mr McKay explains: “It had consent for residential but after the financial crash in 2008 there were no proposals.

“It is now fully occupied in the space of 10 years.

He said: “It covers a range of jobs. We have not favoured just one sector.”

Clyde Gateway's role, he said is “putting down a marker of confidence in an area to bring in business”.

“People, place and jobs” is a mantra he repeats more than once on the trip around the Clyde Gateway area.

The next big project is Shawfield, with the old, now dilapidated greyhound, speedway and former Clyde FC football stadium at the heart of the area.

Mr McKay and the team he leads, and speaks very highly of, are eager for it to get started.

The “tipping point” he says is when “others recognise the potential in the area independently of Clyde Gateway.”