JOHN Gallacher has the kind of job it's difficult to say goodbye to.

The boss of Cruden Estates has played a major role in re-shaping Glasgow's housing in areas as diverse as Govan and the great peripheral estates of Castlemilk, Easterhouse and Drumchapel.

The holder of the MBE led the consortium that built the award-winning Commonwealth Games athletes' village which is being turned into two, three and four-bedroom homes.

At some point the R-word was bound to come up. But Glasgow-boss John is still here. He was due to retire last year, after 36 years with Cruden.

"Retirement was always something that was somewhere on the horizon," he says.

"But when it came to last year, retirement wasn't a possibility - there was just so much going on which I was heavily involved in.

"I was asked to stay on part-time, but that wouldn't have worked. I'd have found it hard to approach anything on a part-time basis.

"The plan was that I stayed on for one year, which has now turned into two years. But these two years have allowed me to see exactly where we're going as a company.

"I've started a process whereby I'll be available to the company a couple of days a week, and I will be channelling new projects through my colleagues."

If you want a summing-up of Cruden's work over the years, you only have to glance at the cabinet in the reception area at the Cruden Campus in Cambuslang. It's full of awards and accolades.

John himself has sat on the board of Clyde Gateway and was given a key role in regenerating the East End.

He has chaired influential local bodies, including the Castlemilk Economic Development Agency. He has even been an external housing adviser to Labour's shadow cabinet at Holyrood.

Little wonder, then, that one local housing association boss says of him: "His knowledge of the building industry is matched by his understanding that regeneration is about more than bricks and mortar - he understands where ordinary Glasgow citizens come from in their wish to enjoy good-quality housing in a pleasant environment."

John qualified as a chartered accountant in 1975. "I always describe myself as a lapsed CA, but my emphasis has always been in finance, which is no bad training in any business," he says.

After a spell at Price Waterhouse he joined Cruden in 1978 and steadily worked his way up.

He was managing director at Cruden Developments then Cruden Building and Renewals, before heading Cruden Estates.

He's proud of Cruden's role in building the athletes' village at Dalmarnock.

It will be a new village of 300 private homes, 400 for-rent homes and even a 120-bed care home.

He talks of the complicated process involved in putting together the City Legacy Consortium - builders Cruden, CCG, Mactaggart and Mickel, plus the civil infrastructure contractors, Malcolm Group - that built the village in three years.

IT wasn't just that you had three builders on site at the same time," says John.

"There was a huge infrastructure contract going on, and a combined heat-and-power (CHP) system with 27 kilometres of pipe running underneath the village.

"If you take any big building development competition that has happened in Glasgow in the past - such as Darnley and Pollok - it can take four to five years from the date of competition to the actual date of starting work.

"But the entire Commonwealth Games were finished within that time-scale. Dalmarnock, the biggest project in Glasgow, was finished before the time it usually takes to get a big project started."

Ask him about the bigger Glasgow picture, and on the impact he thinks he has had in city housing, he says: "Glasgow's my city. That's a grand thing to say, but it's true. I like working here.

"I've had opportunities to work abroad - I have worked in London and in America - but I've always known that this is where I want to live. Therefore, I want good things for Glasgow.

"I was born in Govan, lived in Priesthill, went to school in Townhead, and I still have friends and relatives all over the city.

"It was great that I joined Cruden while living in Priesthill. We were building the Pollok Centre and right away I felt, this is great - we're doing something up here that is needed.

"We went on to build the New Govan Cross shopping centre, the Mitchell Arcade in Rutherglen. We did the original Sauchiehall Street Centre. We had all of that going, as well as big projects in Dundee, Edinburgh and down south.

"So I came into the development side. I liked seeing the difference that you can make to places with that scale of development.

"When I got into the housing side, things were a bit slower. At that time, the city was keen on refurbishing the housing stock. I could see the value of retaining the old sandstone tenements."

In time, Cruden left its mark in the housing market all over the city. Cruden built the first private homes for sale in Castlemilk. It won a city contract to refur- bish 360 council houses and build 120 others for sale.

All told, John has been involved in more than 75 partnership projects with a total value of £200million.

"I'm proud of what we've done," he says.

"All along, we wanted to create housing that attracts people from every social and economic background - and people, as we all know, are the most important element of regeneration."

russell.leadbetter@ eveningtimes.co.uk