Charity secures vacant Glasgow land for £1

Glasgow City Council is set to sell an area of land in Maryhill to Barnardo’s Scotland for the nominal sum of £1.The charity will develop accommodation at the Shiskine Drive site in a pilot project which will look to help young people transition from being in care to being independent tenants.The grassed area, which is around a quarter of an acre in size, is currently owned by the local authority and sits on the vacant and derelict land register.Plans show that the accommodation will feature five one-storey homes, of which four will be one-bedroomed and one will be a larger home to be staffed full-time with one staff member on waking night-shift and another sleeping over.The pilot project will offer young people the chance to live semi-independently, and has been developed through Barnardo’s Scotland’s Gap Home initiative – which aims to provide manageable, affordable accommodation and time and space for young people which will help them transition into independent living.The charity had approached the Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership about potential opportunities in the city for this project, and both the latter and Glasgow City Council’s housing and regeneration and community asset management teams were supportive of the proposal.The local authority said that the nominal cost of this land sale will allow the charity to offer the service to the council’s children’s services at a more economical rate.