Nesting in Laurieston

Did you get the Lorne Sausage darling?

You know, when one of my fans drew my attention to the website of Laurieston Living I couldn't see what he was on about. But then I started to dig deeper and realised that this revolutionary project was the work of the spivs that run RTPI Scotland and the Scottish Planner magazine - Barton Willmore.

Now I've explained in a previous post that it was a considerable coup by Barton Willmore to turn the mouthpiece of RTPI Scotland into the Barton Willmore Times with regular excruciating homilies by Stephen Tucker in praise of himself while taking control of the design and publication of the 'learned journal'. It was a major victory that was Pravda-esque in its scope and execution! A private consultancy had finally taken over the RTPI's Branch office in Scotland. My hearty congratulations go out again to everyone who was involved in this!

Now the same team have set their sights on the gentrification of Laurieston in the Gorbals of Glasgow - and not before time either! It's a slum area filled with rats in black plastic bags and stolen cars. It should have been regenerated years ago.

Someone at work said they were going to live in Laurieston darling!
Can you believe that? Hahaha!

Now the Lauriston Living website is truly breathtaking in its unashamed pandering to comfy middle class values.  There are nudge-nudge jokes like the people seen preparing a healthy meal of some disgusting salad - there isn't a piece of Lorne Sausage in sight so that can't be right! There's a picture of a couple about to have sex and another nice wee photie of another couple pretending to do a crossword. Amazing and aspirational! I wasn't sure if I was excited or if my flesh was crawling - either way it was a good edgy feeling!

Now as an expert planner, I hoped to be able to bring you my analysis of the development. I expected to see some fantastic artists impressions of the future but it was not to be - there isn't one single picture of the new buildings anywhere on the site! This is a startling and brave innovation. The great unwashed will have nothing to complain about! The insightful architectural critics of the Urban Realm website will have nothing to gossip about. It's a stroke of genius and a model for the future. We all know that planning consent will be phased out in the next few years but in the meantime, giving next to no details of development proposals is a step in the right direction and will speed up the approval process considerably.

4 across - Man's best friend - three letters...what can it be?

I'm looking forward to seeing this development revolutionise the way people live in Glasgow and Barton Willmore are the very people to do this.  They are undoubtedly Scotland's most innovative and thoughtful planning consultancy and have basically left other planning firms in the dust through their ambitious forays into the Planning Establishment where they have literally changed the landscape of practice. If they teamed up with Halliday Fraser Munro or Keppies we would all be in Seventh Heaven!  The tumescence of this fine company and its ability to penetrate and push its way around will find favour with many readers of the Scottish Planner. I'm sure this new erection will be one of the finest in Scotland if not in Europe and I thoroughly commend it to all of my fans. And I'm sure that our leader Wee Craigie McLaren will be well pleased that this has happened on his watch.

All the best from Auchterness. I'll be back again soon with more exciting tales from the world of town planning in Scotland. Cheeriebye for now.