{"id":411709,"date":"2025-09-09T23:55:32","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/411709\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T23:55:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:55:32","slug":"port-glasgow-named-scotlands-ugliest-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/411709\/","title":{"rendered":"Port Glasgow named Scotland\u2019s ugliest town"},"content":{"rendered":"

Port Glasgow can take an insult. This town on the Clyde has way too much pride in itself \u2014 in its storied past and its community \u2014 to be bothered by the views of others.<\/p>\n

For years the place was dismissed as the Dirty Wee Port. Then, in the digital age, social media influencers picturing themselves in the condemned Clune Park scheme came up with what they thought was a new zinger: Scotland\u2019s Chernobyl.<\/p>\n

Now architects have named Port Glasgow as Scotland\u2019s most dismal town, awarding it the infamous Plook on a Plinth trophy, one of the Carbuncle awards that nobody wants to win and which are back after an eight-year hiatus.<\/p>\n

Drew McKenzie, the town butcher and provost of Inverclyde, the local council, is not impressed. \u201cPish,\u201d he says, when told of the news. Then he comes up with a response he sees as more fitting for his office: \u201cNonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKenzie, an independent councillor, is in his shop, Robert Alexander Butchers on Princes Street, the town\u2019s main drag. \u201cThis is a decent place to stay with decent folk,\u201d he says. \u201cIt just needs a little care and attention. I would not say it has been neglected. The retail side of things has been in decline in all of Scotland\u2019s towns, thanks to out-of-town shopping and Amazon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Overgrown<\/p>\n

Clune Park Primary School, which was built in 1887, has fallen into disrepair and is slated for demolition<\/p>\n

JEFF J MITCHELL\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

McKenzie is up at 5.30am to cut his meat for the day. His shops still offers things you cannot get in supermarkets: his own sausages and steak pies. But walking down his street, McKenzie admits there are \u201ctoo many fast-food shops\u201d. The tiny grid centre \u2014 with a history to rival any town in Scotland \u2014 is also dotted with the Turkish barbers, vape stores, charity shops and bookies. <\/p>\n

A block from McKenzie\u2019s shop stands the carcass of the former Woolworths, which shut in 2008 when the chain closed. \u201cPeople say this looks like 1970s Romania,\u201d the provost says. \u201cBut it is ripe for redevelopment.\u201d The council has bought most of this part of town, the lower quarter. With a motorway east and five trains an hour to Glasgow, the local authorities see potential in the Port.<\/p>\n

So does the organisation behind the Carbuncle awards, Urban Realm magazine. \u201cPort Glasgow is a town of squandered potential,\u201d argues John Glenday, the publication\u2019s editor. \u201cLook beyond the grey walls, rubble and boarded-up windows to long vistas and you will see the beauty of the place, still punctuated by the grandeur of the library.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glenday is talking about one of Port Glasgow\u2019s genuine architectural gems: old municipal buildings where people can borrow books under a stunning early 19th-century clock tower. The town is not without other treasures \u2014 it is also home to Newark Castle, an elegant Georgian kirk and the world\u2019s oldest Masonic hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the immediate environment fails to do justice to what could and should be a jewel in the Clyde\u2019s crown,\u201d Glenday adds. \u201cClune Park was solidly built and once home to a thriving community \u2014 and with investment it could have done so again. Issues around population decline and deprivation are real but are best dealt with by working with established assets, not sweeping buildings aside in the hope that the underlying problems will go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glenday stresses that decades of bad planning \u2014 most obviously a big road separating the town from the river \u2014 have blighted its image.<\/p>\n

\"Reclaimed<\/p>\n

The derelict estate has been the subject of a long-running stand-off between private landlords and the local council that has prevented redevelopment<\/p>\n

JEFF J MITCHELL\/GETTY<\/p>\n

\"Demolition<\/p>\n

Houses were secured prior to the start of a demolition programme at the Clune Park estate earlier this year<\/p>\n

JEFF J MITCHELL\/GETTY<\/p>\n

In another of Port Glasgow\u2019s central streets, Kevin Green, a community activist brimming with ideas, agrees with every word Glenday says. \u201cWe basically were cut off from our shore and our park by a bypass to get people to Greenock and Gourock.\u201d From his base at PG25, a social enterprise looking at ways to boost the town, he welcomes the Plook on the Plinth. \u201cGood,\u201d he exclaims. <\/p>\n

Green is still cross about Clune Park\u2019s demolition. It symbolises, he reckons, half-hearted efforts at regeneration. A while back, when the council wanted to save the scheme, it tarted up Robert Street, the main road through the community, installing stone spheres to separate the roadway from pavements. The new street furniture has been taken away and installed in better-off parts of Inverclyde. Green, tongue-in-cheek, compares this to the Elgin Marbles. \u201cWe want the Boab Street baws back,\u201d he smiles as he slips into Scots.<\/p>\n

Green is convinced his town has a future. The Port, he stressed, has a history of ups and downs which coincides with Scotland\u2019s. From 1668 to 1775 this was part of Glasgow \u2014 the original town centre grid was built by the old corporation of Scotland\u2019s biggest city on 13 acres bought from a local laird. Why? Because this was as far up the Clyde as ships could go. It was from here, as well as Leith, that Scotland\u2019s ruinous effort to set up a colony in the New World began. It was to Port Glasgow that the would-be colonisers returned \u2014 at least those who survived.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

The Ferguson Marine shipyard and CalMac ferry Glen Sannox on the Clyde at Port Glasgow<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

Port Glasgow was awarded the Plook on the Plinth trophy for its dismal appearance<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

Glasgow ditched its port after dredging the upper river. And then \u2014 crucially \u2014 America declared independence. Port Glasgow, built on the Atlantic trade, including slave-derived goods, lost its purpose. So it switched to building ships, and is still doing so at ferry-maker Ferguson Marine<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Its biggest yard \u2014 Lithgow\u2019s, which was also the world\u2019s largest \u2014 is now a giant retail park anchored by one of Scotland\u2019s biggest Tesco superstores. The shopping centre is connected to the town by a pathway in which the names of long-closed shipbuilders are engraved.<\/p>\n

It is exactly 250 years after Port Glasgow \u201cwon\u201d its independence from Glasgow \u2014 and 50 years since it lost its burgh status and self-government. Green reckons it is time for a rethink. \u201cWe need, again, to find out what Port Glasgow is for,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

One idea: hospitality and tourism. \u201cThe distance from the far end of the retail park right through the town is less than the length of big malls like Silverburn or Braehead,\u201d he says. \u201cRight now there is a disconnect. But we can merge our town with the retail park.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Dirty Wee Port, Green argues, is nothing of the kind. It boasts stunning views, striking architecture and enviable transport links. But can it come up with a plan to shake off all the old insults?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Port Glasgow can take an insult. This town on the Clyde has way too much pride in itself…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-411709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115177044425485081","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}