A DEVELOPER has submitted new plans for flats to be built on the site of a bowling green in Glasgow’s Southside, despite opposition from the local community.
Glasgow-based NOAH Developments has lodged a second planning application with Glasgow City Council for the former Mount Florida Bowling Club, on Carmunnock Road, after the first one was rejected in 2020.
If approved, the application will see the erection of 32 one, two and three-bedroom flats, a multi-purpose landscaped community open space, and a re-modelled community hub in the upgraded pavilion building.
The developer is also offering ownership of the community facilities, which occupy around half of the site, at no cost, to a local community group.
It comes amid an ongoing row involving resident groups, including the Mount Florida Community Trust, which has been campaigning to preserve the whole green space.
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A document submitted as part of the application says a “key driver” for the development is the “retention of existing site features including the clubhouse and maximising the provision of open green space within the site”.
The developer says it would be taking “what was once inaccessible private land” and offering it to the community, as “both an enhanced visual amenity and a truly accessible space for the public to use, enjoy and benefit from”.
According to planning documents, the former bowling club pavilion building would provide “a flexible, multi-purpose space that will be made available to the local community [...] accommodating a range of proposed community uses, such as parents and toddlers’ groups, games nights, keep fit classes, educational events, craft groups and café space”.
The facility will be set in “extensive community open space”, which will be highly accessible from the surrounding residential areas, and which can be used and adapted for a variety of uses such as yoga, active outdoor play, informal sports, relaxation areas, children’s play areas and community gardens.
NOAH said it remains committed to ongoing community discussion during the planning process.
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A spokesperson said: “We are delighted to have submitted this planning application, which will see the redevelopment of the site, with half of it gifted at no cost to the local community and the current pavilion building upgraded to a new community hub, which can be used for a variety of local uses.
“The community will for the first time have direct ownership of these assets.
“We will continue to engage with the local community as we have done throughout the whole consultation process”.
In May this year, the Mount Florida Community Trust had rejected NOAH’s offer for for local community groups to own 50% of the site and vowed to keep fighting for the green space, after its members voted to keep the campaign going.
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Nicola Smith, one of the trust’s directors, previously told the Glasgow Times: “We are trying to preserve the option of a greener future.
“If we agreed to work with NOAH now, that would be the definitive end of that green option, and that's not where our community feeling seems to sit at the moment.
“They [NOAH] saw the community's will two years ago and could have dropped the purchase, but they pursued it in a quite hostile manner against the will of the community.
“Mount Florida has shown itself to be an active community, so we hope we can build on that and keep the campaign going.
“They want to at least keep fighting for a green option, and we will.”
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Residents had been vocal in their rejection of the development, with 620 objections to the previous application.
In a petition by the trust in 2021, 1100 residents said the green space and community hub must be kept for community use.
The Mount Florida Bowling Club, which closed in October 2019 after 110 years due to reduced membership, was purchased by NOAH last December.
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