IT is the first thing you see when you get off the train at Queen Street, as synoymous with Glasgow as the Wellington cone.

I remember travelling down on the train from the Highlands for Christmas shopping with my parents and marvelling at the lights. A bit gaudy yes - I’m sure our Edinburgh neighbours feel their display is a far classier affair - however, it’s always reassuring to see the same bells flashing that I saw as a wee girl.

But I’ve always felt that we aren’t quite making the most of George Square.

The SNP group would like to take the money-spinning events out of the square and stage them elsewhere, creating a civic space for people to relax.

It has urged the council to take heed of the results of an online survey - www.surveymonkey.com/r/S8T9KG7 - which is asking the public how they want their square to be used.

To be fair to the Labour administration, they have listened to the public before, the unpopular red tarmac was ditched, during a £500,000 revamp.

The survey is generating a lot of positivity and sensible suggestions, which is nice to see. It’s heartening that people feel such a connection to the square and want to make their voices heard.

With the focus of George Square now firmly on events and the much-needed revenue they provide, it has become a bit of a no-mans land. A concrete jungle, in a concrete jungle and hardly a worthy setting for one of the UK’s most stunning buildings.

While the city is facing £100m of cuts, spending millions on a fancy make-over isn’t an option but the square but improvements need not burst the bank. I’d like to see a return to a lusher ‘greener’ space, with more plants and shrubs and grassy areas. And I’m not alone.

Allan Morgan writes: “Our cities grand centre should be about giving its citizens an environment that offers relaxation to all in the middle of this Great City.

“A return to the grassed areas, wonderful plant arrangements ( that we are famous for ) trees with imaginative lighting, benches where the weary shopper and so many others can take the weight off and enjoy the views, information pieces at each monument telling its story, perhaps a reconfiguring of the layout to encourage leisurely strolling instead of the vast middle space which presumably was intended for commercial use from time to time, perhaps those enterprises need to reviewed.

“This above all else is the peoples square, let’s give it back to them.” Hear, hear Alan.