The Red Road Flats were a mid-twentieth-century high-rise housing complex located between the districts of Balornock and Barmulloch in the northeast of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate originally consisted of eight multi-storey blocks of steel frame construction. All were demolished by 2015. Two were "slabs", much wider in cross-section than they are deep. Six were "points", more of a traditional tower block shape. The slabs had 28 floors, the point blocks 31, and taken together, they were designed for a population of 4,700 people. The point blocks were among the tallest buildings in Glasgow at 89 metres (292 ft), second in overall height behind the former Bluevale and Whitevale Towers in Camlachie. The 30th floor of the point blocks were the highest inhabitable floor level of any building in Glasgow.
The Eight Red Road Towerblocks in March 2009. All demolished by 2015.
Flats seen in 1979 before overcladding complete, with many still showing their original exterior walls
The two most westerly blocks of the complex; 10 Red Road Court (left) and 33 Petershill Drive (centre), were later used as student accommodation and a YMCA, respectively
Red Road Flats, view from Broomfield Road, 2012.
The Bruce Report is the name commonly given to the First Planning Report to the Highways and Planning Committee of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow published in March 1945. It influenced an intensive programme of regeneration and rebuilding efforts which took place in the city and surroundings from the mid-1950s and lasted until the late 1970s. The author was Robert Bruce, Glasgow Corporation Engineer at the time.
Commercial developments built in the early 1960s such as this one on George Street were typical of those influenced by the Bruce Report's findings. This complex – now occupied by Strathclyde University – replaced a block of slum tenements.
Townhead's new educational quarter, with buildings such as the Central College of Commerce (foreground) evolved from the ideas contained within the Bruce Report
The housing proposals of the Bruce Report were among the most controversial aspects. It inspired the mass construction of high rise estates around the city such as the infamous Red Road development pictured above.
The M8 Motorway is the most visible legacy of the Bruce Report in the centre of Glasgow. It forms two sides of an incomplete inner ring road around the city centre