Ten years later but Glasgow South Side Q Club snooker hall collapse still causing misery

Ten years of legal dispute between Glasgow City Council and Aviva insurance company is causing ongoing misery for locals with no clear end in sight.

On July 28, 2011, the roof of the Q Club, behind Victoria Road, began to cave in and caused the evacuation of dozens of homes and businesses on three streets.

Glasgow City Council's building control staff deemed the building unsafe and instructed the now-liquidated Hunter Demolition to bring it down.

Homes were left damaged, as were businesses, but repairs cannot go ahead until the council and insurers Aviva settle a dispute over responsibility.

Brian Callander, owner of Callander's Second Hand Shop on Victoria Road, said: "The most frustrating thing for me is that there doesn't seem to be enough pressure on the people in power.

"They won't tell us what the details of the deal are, we are kept in the dark.

"We are stuck in this limbo that doesn't seem to be moving forward.

"I remember at the time being told by a guy it would be five years-plus to get resolved and I remember laughing at him - I never thought for a minute this would be 10 years of my life."

After the initial collapse, problems began to emerge with flooding into the building as well as issues with sewage.

Residents the Glasgow Times spoke to said they are still dealing with flooding into their properties when it rains.

Brian said this is an issue for businesses too - but no repair work can begin until the contract is signed.

We told in 2016 how multiple sewage pipes had been converted into a single down pipe unable to cope with the amount of waste water being flushed down it.

Victoria Road Carpets shop was flooded and residents were also experiencing raw sewage flooding up into baths and sinks as well as into their toilets.

To address the problem, factors ordered pipes be diverted from flats at 366 Victoria Road, spewing kitchen waste out on to the open ground.

That open ground is now completely overgrown with weeds reaching higher than the first floor flats but, again, the council will not deal with the issue until the contract is signed.

An added complication was that the backcourt area was still owned by the owners of the former Q Club, but the council took temporary ownership of the ground in 2019.

The Glasgow Times understands insurers appointed a lawyer to draft up a contract in February 2018 and the council received a copy of the contract shortly afterwards.

In May that year a meeting was held, chaired by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and a deal was discussed to rebuild the shops and reinstate the backcourt area in two stages.

Phase one works would consist of taking down and rebuilding the back wall and form stairway from closes to ground floor backcourt area.

2nd phase works - formation of back court and bin stores at ground floor level.

At a public meeting on May 18, residents and businesses backed the plans and the hope was that things would finally move forward but talks stalled.

Meanwhile, the backcourt continued to deteriorate and home owners started to report rats and mice in their flats.

Glasgow City Council placed Taylor bins in the lane areas instead of wheelie bins and this quickly became a hot spot for fly tipping.

Brian added: "People were under the impression that once the council took ownership of the land and the contract was drafted things were going to get underway very quickly but it just seems to be another delay.

"The plant life is starting to take over and grow into every crevice of the building and it will go where water is so we're waiting for it to get into the pipes and block them.

"When there is heavy rain we are up there emptying buckets - during the lockdown my brother and I were coming in constantly to empty out all the buckets."

Graham Ross owns a business property on Victoria Road. He said: "The reinstatement of the backcourt and the adjacent tenements has proceeded with goodwill but at an incredibly slow pace.

"In my opinion this is because no one person had been in charge.

"This has resulted in things being done 'in time' rather than 'on time'.

"This could be remedied by the appointment of a project manager."

At the beginning, a group of residents banded together to petition the people in charge to sort out the situation.

Brian and his brother had been in the process of moving the business to Paisley Road West at Cardonald but that fell through when the collapse happened.

Other residents were stuck with properties they could not sell - but there was team spirit.

Now, over the years, people have sold up and, while he still has a lot of support, Brian has increasingly found himself the spokesman for the community of residents and business owners.

Around one third of the 42 flat owners made the decision to sell up with Southside Housing Association taking on more than 10 of the properties.

He said: "There was a whole core of us and people with different skill sets and you could bounce ideas off them.

"But as people have sold up, and I don't blame them, I feel there has been far less pressure on the council and Aviva to sort things.

"I am sick to the back teeth of it all now and I think it's a disgrace that it was left to us, rather than the factors, to sort this out.

"They sat on their hands and I get angry about that side of things.

"I'm not qualified to deal with these types of things but over the years I have learned."

Over the years the Glasgow Times has repeatedly contacted Aviva with queries but the firm says each time that it cannot comment.

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council told us this week that the original legal agreement drawn up by the insurers’ solicitors was deemed to be too complicated by the council’s legal services team.

He said in addition there was no agreement on funding contributions.

Harper MacLeod, the legal firm, has drawn up a new agreement and this is with the insurers’ solicitors for response.

In the meantime, property owners continue to wait with still no end in sight.

Brian added: "It's the impact on all our lives, financially and emotionally.

"It is shocking the stuff that people have had to put up with."