Former residents from the Botany are still struggling to get back to their home in the popular estate in Maryhill some six years after they left. Some former residents are now very concerned that housing bosses no longer intend to move the Botany community back where it belongs. Relocated to other areas of Maryhill, the former residents say that prime site by the Forth and Clyde Canal is being eyed by greedy private housing developers, intent on putting high-priced executive flats where socially-rented community homes once stood.

The struggle to make housing bosses keep their earlier promises of moving the community back together has now been taken to Alex Salmond, Scotland's new First Minister.

One ex-Botany resident, Margaret said: "Everyone pulled together in the Botany. If someone was sick, we took them soup. If someone died, we sent a collection round. There was no debt in the Botany and no crime. We looked after each other."

Margaret continued: "It broke my heart the day we were moved out. Although the flats were damp and crumbling we didn't want anything else. The financial worry of having to provide a new house for my family put a strain on my marriage that wouldn't have been there if we'd been allowed to stay."

The promise to move the residents back to the Botany was originally made by Glasgow City Council, however plans to build the new homes were then passed to Glasgow Housing Association and lastly to Maryhill Housing Association. Although there were 171 homes in the Botany when demolished, the plans now only account for 40 new socially-rent homes on the re-developed site. The residents community have since agreed that those with the longest tenancies should be chosen to move back.

No matter what happens, it seems that the Botany - as it was - may have gone forever from Maryhill.

Botany Timeline:

• 1790's
  Cottages built to accommodate textile workers first made up the estate known as the Botany. The area's name, which included Whitelaw Street, Cowal Street, Lochgilp Street and Glencloy Street, derived from the convicts who were shipped to Australia's Botany Bay from the Forth and Clyde canal adjacent to the estate.
  
• 1999
  Rumours began among local residents that the Botany homes were to be razed. Protests to the council went unaddressed.
  
• 2001
  Glasgow City Council persuaded families to move elsewhere during demolition, promising that they would return to new homes on the site within two years.
  
• 2002
  Tenement flats which dated from 1891 and once housed more than 200 families demolished.
  
• 2007
  Still no sign of any new homes on the Botany site and former residents left in despair.

Take the topic poll...

GG.

I understand that they need to fix all the buildings ,but to make them give up to make money its sad ,now there is another way of life gone forever .I know what that ex botaney [Butney] woman ment about the neighbours ,when I grew up in what was called the Valley ,the neighbour all helped one another ,also the collecting money for some one who had lost a family member ,and the meals for the family ,even if you had to do with less your parents always made sure the family had help

Can someone please tell me who, if anyone, is independently responsible for making sure councils et al are made to keep their promises?

Basically disatisfaction with the City Council can be addressed at the ballot box but specific cases like this can be and should be looked at by the Scottish Local Authority Ombudsman.

it looks like a wee bit of our neigbourhood the Butney is being swallowed up by lying Glasgow city council the same is going to happen to my birthplace the Valley it will be gone forever

i live in whats left of the valley and the talk around here is that the botany/butney "redevelopment" plans are going to be changed from back and front doors too closes ie tenement style houses

They would not like to move to Botany in Sydney!
You would be inclined to be deafened by Jumbo jets and covered in avation fuel.
This for sure would be one promise that the Corporation will not keep.
They would be charging a lot of money for renting or buying. That only the moderately well-off could afford.