It’s 12.30am on a Friday morning, and instead of being tucked up warm in my double bed, I’m jockeying for a chair nearest the heaters in the City Chamber’s Banqueting Hall. Tonight, the grand space is a hive of activity. “Can all candidates and agents please gather by the screen closest to the mural side of the hall?” directs an official. A cluster of people forms, outfitted in their best semi-casual wear, tailored to political allegiance (think lots of turtlenecks and blazer combos, although SNP councillor Declan Blench has managed to dig up a snazzy pair of sherbert yellow skinny jeans).
We’re all here for the count. A trio of north Glasgow wards — North East, Drumchapel/Anniesland and Maryhill — went to the polls on Thursday. All three departing councillors were Labour, but rival parties clung to hope that they could make headway, thanks to the rocky start of the new UK Labour government down south.
When the results are called, both North East and Drumchapel/Anniesland stay red, as expected, electing Mary McNab and Davena Rankin to replace their departed party colleagues, who had stepped down after becoming MPs.
It’s the compact ward of Maryhill — tipped to be taken by the SNP — that I’m interested in. Triggered by the surprise September resignation of Labour councillor Kieran O’Neill, Lorna Finn, formerly the SNP’s national secretary, and Greens flag bearer Ellie Gomersall, tell me their campaigns for the vacancy have been a “whirlwind”, which is a diplomatic way to say ‘rushed’.
Nevertheless, two days earlier, current Maryhill SNP councillor Abdul Bostani told The Bell that the party had “some confidence” the ward could be theirs tonight. Even Marie Garrity, the Labour hopeful, is a bit despondent before Maryhill’s decision is returned. Garrity’s door chapping has painted a picture of residents furious at the Labour government in Westminster. “I’ve had stalwart elderly Labour voters tell me ‘I’m sorry, I can’t vote for you because of the winter fuel payment [cuts]’,” she says.
An experienced former councillor and domestic violence campaigner, Garrity sensed an off mood on Maryhill’s streets. Some days, there was real momentum, she reports, but on others it felt “very flat”.
In the short term, she needn’t have worried. Just ten minutes later, she’s elected as Maryhill’s newest city council representative — the only Labour victor in all three wards to actually improve her party’s vote share since the last council elections. Yet turnout was seriously depressed. Plus, a sizable Reform swing in every area is enough to put the cat amongst the political pigeons.
I’ve observed firsthand what Garrity means about the mood. Less than 48 hours earlier, I’m struggling with my bike lock on Maryhill Road; in freezing temperatures, it sticks. Bright sun, warming the sandstone blocks of Maryhill’s impressive historic buildings (mostly Victorian and Edwardian), provides a bit of respite. I’m here to do canvassing of my own, asking some of the 14,619 Maryhill residents who can vote in the upcoming election what they make of it — at least, those who’d actually got wind of the contest in the first place.
“I didn’t know [there was one],” says 61 year-old Paula*, out with her octogenarian mother for a mid-morning coffee in the cafe of the supersized Tesco. Normally, Paula says, she’ll always put a vote in, whether for Holyrood, Westminster or local. But not this time. There’s little point: “The only people with political clout are in London.”
A few tables over is Mark, who has a single black Bluetooth headphone bud firmly wedged in his right ear and a walking stick leaning against the faux-leather banquette. He’s also 61, and a Labour man by heritage; his mother was a shop steward. Mark will forever vote Labour, he says, even though he “doesn’t know what this lot stands for.” No one’s chapped his door this time round; in the streets bordering Maryhill Park, where houses are large and detached, two young parents are the only people I chat to who’ve encountered reps for Marie Garrity (she’s got their vote).
Time constraints have forced telling choices; the SNP’s Lorna Finn says her electoral strategy has been to focus on previous party supporters. Finn’s approach could explain why she found canvassing for the by-election genuinely “great fun”, and why she believed the SNP were in with a chance here. What Finn and Abdul Bostani have heard on the (cherry-picked) doorsteps is the same as Garrity: anger at the UK government over fuel subsidy cuts, and small business owners riled by national insurance (NI) hikes.
Yet no Maryhill residents I speak to are backing the SNP. There’s frustration with the local SNP-led authority: key issues are housing (more affordable stock needed), public transport (lack of it) and potholes (too many of them). Flytipping is also high on the agenda. Rose, a 77-year-old I meet waiting for the bus, is an abstaining former SNP voter. “I’m not happy with them at all,” she says.
In a snug Maryhill Road barber shop, I find Charles. He’s worked here for 29 of his 74 years on earth and owned it for the last six. The NI change has annoyed him: he says he’ll be hiring fewer people despite feeling that unemployment is a big problem. Maryhill businesses need more investment, he adds. Since the pandemic, they’re struggling, as are the older men who sit in Charles’ chair, with many choosing between heating and eating.
In Charles’ opinion, Maryhill has deteriorated: “drunkies hanging about” and a lot of shops closing. Plus, new parking emissions charges are losing him custom and he can’t understand why the SNP council leaders are spending money on “stupid things” like cycle lanes, instead of concentrating more funds on homelessness.
He won’t be voting — Charles lives in Stepps — but if he could, he’d back Reform because “Mr. Farage is the only one that speaks his mind”. Lots of his customers over 40 say that’s where they’re leaning too. How does he feel about the fact that David McGowan, the local Reform candidate, is also a member of the Orange Order, I ask? “So am I,” Charles replies cheerfully. He thinks people aren’t as fussed about such divides anymore, not with other matters on the table. “People are more concerned if they can pay for their homes,” he says. “It’s ridiculous. I've got a lot of pensioners saying they’re coming in here for the heat. That shouldn't happen.” As I leave, he tells me to get David McGowan to pay him a visit.
At the count, McGowan took third place, hoovering up nearly 13% of first preference votes. As this result would suggest, I happened across a couple more Reform voters. Both were unfailingly polite and studiously avoided mentioning immigration. Maryhill is a place where many refugees are housed and has, for Scotland, a high degree of ethnic diversity. The majority of longtime locals have been welcoming and organisations like the Maryhill Integration Network work tirelessly to ensure residents old and new know that this ward is a home for all who alight here. But this sentiment is not always shared.
I get a flash of this when asking Paula about the high student population in Maryhill. “There are a lot of students, and, no harm, a lot of…” she pauses and trails off. “They get the best houses and flats.” She outlines a “beautiful” new development that’s gone up by the canal. Something’s going unsaid. Do you actually mean students, I ask?
Paula looks uneasy. “Not just students,” she replies. “Young people. I’m trying to be diplomatic.”
Don’t be diplomatic, be honest, I tell her.
“Well,” she says, finally. “I've nothing against immigrants, nothing whatsoever, but we've got a lot of poverty here and a lot of families that need somewhere nice to live, that were born and bred here. And they’re nae getting the chance. I just feel they should get the chance.”
As evening begins to stalk Maryhill Road, in Berlin's Doner takeaway, I meet Tareq*, busy chopping vegetables ahead of the evening rush. He’s one of the refugees Paula mentions but he certainly doesn’t have a beautiful canal-side flat to call home. “Seven months on the waiting list,” he says, smiling ruefully. But it’s not so bad, Tareq says — people he knows with settled status are still homeless a year on. Tareq is currently lodging with a friend. He likes Maryhill. It’s “nice”.
Rose, my bus stop companion, agrees. “We don’t miss out in Maryhill,” she says. When Rose arrived in a distressed Maryhill thirty-odd years ago, it was reeling from industrial decline. But hard-won improvements are everywhere, from the cleaned-up canal to local amenities on offer. Even in the darkest days, Maryhill could lean on its “really strong community organisation”, she says, recalling support initiatives for women, one-parent families, and the Urban Aid programme. Today, she cites cycling collectives for older women and the leafy community garden up in Maryhill Park as some of her favourite local endeavours.
Much of this endures. When I duck inside Maryhill Ruchill Church, there’s a North West women’s group meeting taking place. The church and its adjoining halls (designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh) are a huge community hub, as is their Catholic counterpart up the way, the Immaculate Conception, which has one of the biggest (and growing) congregations in Glasgow. The Presbyterian church has a much smaller flock — 80 to Immaculate Conception’s 1000 — but there is an unusual formal partnership between the two to better aid not just their worshippers, but the local area at large.
Maryhill is defined by continuity, says minister Stuart Matthews, whose calming presence has served the locality for 19 years. Before that, his father preached in the very same building for the preceding two decades. “Some parts of Glasgow have been literally floored and rebuilt, not always for the better,” he says. “Maryhill has managed to avoid most of that. There’s a sense of identity and pride [passing] from generation to generation.” Even the toponymy of the place reflects this, bestowed upon the ward by an 18th-century heiress who allowed her lands to be used for the settlement’s development on the condition that it forever bore her name: Mary Hill.
In some pockets, like Maryhill’s Wyndford estate, change is unwelcome, even if necessary. Four Brutalist towers within the estate, constructed in the white heat of 1960s social optimism, the Wyndford has recently been slated for demolition by housing association Wheatley Homes. Despite acknowledging the generally poor condition of many flats and promises of 385 affordable new homes with a focus on accommodating families, local outcry was fierce. Emotional ties run deep, as does a distrust in institutional promises that residents will be rehomed in their community.
Wyndford’s remaining population are either ageing and unwilling to leave longtime homes, or desperate newcomers who will accept what is offered. “It’s what we would have called ‘ghettoisation’,” says Matthews. “The poorest people are being put all in the same place, and therefore struggling side by side.” But everyone is still “very proud of their neighbourhood,” he stresses. People work hard and care a lot, about their area and each other.
“Everybody tries to help everybody,” agrees shy chef Lee, whose colourful tattoos peek out of his blue t-shirt neckline. He was placed in the Wyndford a year ago. The only bother the 38-year-old’s encountered is “young fucking idiots” cutting about the close occasionally. Otherwise, he thinks Maryhill bucks a wider trend of decline. “It’s a lot different than it used to be,” he says. “Very up and coming”.
“It is definitely an area on the up,” says Nicola Smith, 45, who’s been in Maryhill for a decade. Despite massive wealth disparities in the space of a few streets, she says there’s a feeling in the air of an area on the cusp of change. “You can see green coming back in the canal, almost like it is healing itself.” New cafes and the trickle of a younger middle-class population moving in are a bellwether.
Perhaps that’s why this is the first time the Greens have dedicated a council campaign to Maryhill. A councillor once told me that such demographic change often brings an increased Green vote, although they framed it as a response to gentrification, rather than a symptom of it. Ellie Gomersall, the party’s 24-year-old candidate for the ward, has no illusions about winning this time. The purpose is to gain a foothold in Maryhill and hear local concerns, offering the Greens up as an alternative to “people who are really frustrated with the SNP/Labour status quo”.
The night before the election, I shadow her evening canvassing session in sub-zero temperatures (for a party so enthusiastic about insulation, I’m horrified that none have brought gloves). Gomersall weaves around retirement complexes and up tiled-tenement block stairs, chatting in detail about the need for more bus routes and why tailored bin collection plans might be better than the blanket imposition of hubs. She favours pragmatism over preaching — on parking emission charges, for example, she says there’s little point placing levies on Maryhill drivers until they have robust alternatives like better public transport and cycle lanes.
Headway seems to be made — at the count, the Maryhill Greens delegation crunches numbers, working out if ambitions could escalate to a win next time. But then they’re beaten into fourth place by Reform and the smiles fade. Gomersall is worried. “People see Reform as a rejection of the status quo,” she notes. “The Greens should be that too, but because of the Bute House agreement, we’re seen as the party of government.” Her main takeaway from weeks of door-knocking in Maryhill is that people there already have the answers to their problems, they just lack the resources. She thinks any Maryhill council representative should be pushing Holyrood to use their devolved tax powers more, giving local authorities additional cash.
This echoes something Minister Stuart Matthews says to me. Both the church and the local organisations it hosts know how to confront issues like Maryhill’s youth unemployment, he asserts, they just need money. The best scenario would be the council “meeting the church halfway,” which I take to mean opening up municipal wallets more. Yes, hopelessness has seen a few people disengage from both politics and wider civic participation, reflected in turnouts that are low even by by-election standards. But that’s not Maryhill’s overarching narrative. People are invested in their ward, even as some lament feelings of neglect compared to other parts of Glasgow. “The West End gets the money and the Southside gets the publicity,” as one person puts it.
Regardless: “There's a sense that we're part of the solution,” says Matthews. “We've got to be the answer to our prayers, getting our hands dirty and getting involved. That makes us activists with a small ‘a’ wanting to shape and make a better community.”
*Names have been changed.
Additional reporting by Catriona Stewart
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This article was amended on 28 November 2024 to better reflect that the four housing blocks scheduled for demolition within the Wyndford Estate are not the entirety of the development.
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