German Government objects to £35million Glasgow flats project

Plans for building a block of flats in one of Europe's most prominent architectural areas has triggered an angry response from the German Consul General in Scotland.

A planning row broke out after a property developer lodged an application for a multi-million pound flat development.

Jens-Peter Voss wrote to Glasgow City Council, on behalf of the German Government, imploring it to ditch what he referred to as an 'inappropriate' and 'clumsy' suggestion to erect 98 flats at the A-listed Park Quadrant in the west end of Glasgow.

Park Quadrant, situated near to Kelvingrove Park, was sold to English-based developer Expresso Property for £6.3m. The housing development proposed by the firm will be worth around £35m on completion.

The council, which stands to net £6.2million from the sale of the land, has received more than 200 formal objections to the development project.

Herr Voss said the townhouses at two and three Park Circus were represented by the German Consulate under international law, and he worries they will be affected by noise and air pollution from the building project.

He believes the scale of the proposed six-storey development would interrupt the studies and privacy of students, visitors and staff at the Goethe Institute and that the proposal is mindless of the area’s historic or architectural charm.

A spokesman for the Park and Woodlands Heritage Trust (PAWH), which has collected a petition of over 2000 signatures opposing the development, said: "Objections to this act of architectural vandalism have come from across the UK and now we have a foreign government entering the fray."

Councillors are due to decide on the issue at a meeting next month. PAWH has submitted a substitute proposal for public gardens and a pavilion on the Park Quadrant site. Members claim this idea is more in keeping with local architecture that the public will enjoy, as well as enhance the council’s vision of the area as a Cultural Quarter.