Rural dream turns to dust as residents see green space vanish

THE vandalised kit house shell on the site off Stewarton Road near Newton Mearns stands as a grim reminder of the speed with which the downturn hit the building industry.

Twice in 10 days, the building has been set alight.

From boom and a licence to print money to bust ...

From the promise of a luxury housing development ... to a derelict, dusty ghost estate.

The streets - even the speed bumps - are in place, but the builders have left the site and abandoned it to all comers.

Developers Manorlane have gone into administration and locals are left wondering what is going to happen. On the other side of the road, Cala have built six luxury homes, all of which have sold.

But the best you can say of Stewarton Road at the moment is that it is one big building site.

For years now, local residents have had to put up with building works and heavy lorries as they watched green belt land vanish under tarmac.

Last week, they learned that work would start shortly on the £30million Greenlaw Village development just off Junction Four of the M77 following the controversial release of green belt land.

Seeing red over green belt homes

FOUR years ago, retiree Cairns Campbell, 64, and his wife Isabel, 65, moved to the country.

They wanted tranquillity, views and to be near their three grand-daughters in Pollokshields.

They found just what they were looking for in Mearns Grove, an upmarket development of 98 houses off Stewarton Road on the edge of Newton Mearns.

Traffic on the M77 tears past the back of the development, but their back garden looks onto Walden Wood and, across Stewarton Road, they have Hillfield, where cattle and sheep sometimes graze.

This is greenbelt land - but developers' promises that it was safe seem to have been worth nothing.

Cairn Housing Association wants to build 304 affordable' houses on Hillfield, on land now owned by the developer, Elphinstone.

Although Elphinstone has been ordered to produce an environmental impact study, locals fear East Renfrewshire Council's view that there is a lack of social' housing in the area will swing things in the developer's favour.

Most householders at Mearns Grove are against the proposed development, says Cairns.

"We are not against affordable' housing. We are just against housing on that site," he said.

"There will be the visual appearance, increased traffic and the loss of a wildlife habitat.

"It seems it's green belt unless they decide it isn't green belt."

Neighbour Duncan McGuinnity said: "Most residents were enticed by Miller Construction's selling gambit that we were sited at the very edge of the Glasgow green belt and this would be maintained."

Another neighbour, Mrs Rehanah Rehman, whose home faces Hillfield, would have her view destroyed. "We bought our house on the basis that our view would not be built on for at least 50 years," she said.

A spokesman for Elphinstone, which made the application on behalf of Cairn Housing Association, said: "East Renfrewshire is an area under housing pressure and the council recognises that additional land and investment in affordable housing is required to meet local needs.

"The land at Patterton is suitable because it is close to the development at Greenlaw, the railway station and area amenities. The proposal will benefit from upgraded infrastructure and good access to schools, shops and local employment."

Further up the road, nearer Junction Three, residents in the upmarket Mearns Grove development are protesting against a plan to build 304 affordable' houses on a field, designated as green belt.

The whole issue of these developments is infuriating locals on a number of counts.

Apart from the loss of greenbelt, they fear the local infrastructure won't be able to cope with all the new residents.

"I don't feel at all happy about what's going on," says Christine McEwan, who lives on an estate opposite the proposed Greenlaw Village with her husband, Alastair, 42, a railway engineer, and son, Calum, 11, a pupil at Mearns Primary.

When Christine, 37, an assistant cook at Williamwood High, and Alastair, came to live here 15 years ago, this was the country.

"Past the roundabout, there was nothing. Now, they're turning a lovely wee country area into a built-up area. Houses are getting thrown up here, there and everywhere. They're trying to cram as many people in as they can.

"It's sad - they have just taken up any vacant land and built on it.

The McEwans' home is in East Renfrewshire, but Christine predicts that there will soon be no green space between themselves and Glasgow.

She added: "I feel unsafe letting my son out because the traffic hurtling up and down these roads is so much worse than it was before.

"I wouldn't mind so much if they would actually finish it, but they're ripping these fields apart and then leaving them abandoned.

"We used to enjoy sitting outside at the Osprey pub. Now it's like sitting in the middle of a building site."

Her husband, who was brought up in Newton Mearns, really notices a difference when he takes their Old English Sheepdog Jura for a walk.

Her neighbour, 71-year-old retired nurse Ena Geddes has put her house up for sale and plans to return to her birthplace in the north-east of Scotland.

Over-development is not the reason she's going but she has campaigned vociferously against all the new sites.

There were farms all around when she and her late mother came here 20 years ago.

"It was beautiful," she says. "You could look across at the fields and it was magic.

"Now, if they could put a roof on top of the motorway, they would build on top of that. What is happening here is horrendous."

Supply teacher Catherine Falconer, 49, now lives in the older part of Newton Mearns, but used to live near Stewarton Road.

It's not joined-up thinking," she says scathingly. "There are all these new houses, but there are not the facilities - the schools, the dentists or the doctor's surgeries to accommodate all these people.

"It's just crazy.

"Instead of building more houses, they should have built a new school."

In response to the criticisms, a spokesman for East Renfrewshire Council said: "The council is committed to improving the quality of life for all residents while allowing reasonable developments both for private housing and local commercial activity.

"The Greenlaw development will create local jobs and will provide facilities for the people of Newton Mearns.

"The council has to balance the lack of affordable' housing and the green belt, but we do draw a line on green belt being developed where it would damage the environment and the quality of living generally."