Our Impact: Saving Govan Graving Docks

Reshaping the Narrative

In 2015 we launched a major campaign for the derelict, historic A-listed Govan Graving Docks (dry docks) in Glasgow to be restored as a maritime heritage park, to celebrate the legacy of shipping and shipbuilding industry on the Clyde. The campaign also opposed the creation of a major housing development on the site.

 

Our campaign snowballed into a sustained collaboration with arts/cultural organisations, academic researchers, and artists across Scotland and Europe, to raise the domestic and international profile of the docks. More than 12,000 people signed an online petition to support a heritage park and oppose a large housing development.

 

In 2017-18, we coordinated a sustained effort to muster objections to a planning application for 750 high rise flats on the graving docks. A controversial plan that would have destroyed the historic character of the site forever. This plan was decisively refused planning consent by Glasgow City Council in August 2018, thanks to the commitment of our supporters and collaborative network.

 

The success of our campaign has brought about a paradigm shift in the attitude of private developers and public planners to the heritage of the graving docks. Before 2015, the docks were abandoned, forgotten, and ripe for profit-driven redevelopment. Land-banked by speculative property developers waiting for the right economic climate.

 

Now that there is growing and widening interest, the developers have been forced to adopt the heritage-sensitive language of our campaigns and collaborative network. So much so that since 2020 they have been promising to restore one of the three dry docks for ship repair.

The Spectre of Private Flats Remains

 

There are still scaled-back plans to build 300 private flats on the graving docks, which Glasgow Councillors voted to approve in March 2025, but the developers appear to have agreed to hand over 80% of the site to the community. Massive investment is still needed to restore the dry docks and we still have much work to do to promote a secure future for the site, grounded in maritime heritage instead of commercial speculation.

 

There is still no formal masterplan or guiding framework for the long-term stewardship of this heritage asset that is unique in the whole of Europe. It stands as one of the last major physical remnants of the pioneering industry that built Glasgow into the great city it is today. Compared with other cities, Glasgow may have a poor track record when it comes to looking after its historic architecture. The Govan Graving Docks site is a golden opportunity to show the tide is turning.

 

Significant successes have been achieved in the effort to save Govan's historic docks, and we owe a debt of gratitude for this to more people than we can count. However, much work is still to be done to secure the future, and we need your ongoing support.

 

The latest plans have been sold to the community as a complete rethink of the developer's strategy, briging it more into line with maritime heritage and conservation of the historic environment. The reality is that the planned blocks of flats have a similar building footprint to the the proposal that was refused planning consent in 2018. The only significant change is the building heights. As for the intention to only build on 20% of the land... that was also the intention in the previous plans, with the rest intended as public realm. Gifting the other 80% of the site to the community enables the developer to reduce their overall construction costs, with public realm likely to be subsidised with public money. This will enhance the property values of any flats they build, however we don't know if the added profit is intended to be shared with the community.

Our Rationale

Since the very start of our campaign, central to our position is that all three of the dry docks should be maintained in a condition that would allowed them to be used as working docks again if there is future demand. Blocks of flats on the site would end that prospect forever.

 

The latent demand for dry docks is there. The West Coast of Scotland does not have the dry dock capacity to service its own ferry fleet.

 

Speaking to people in the street in Govan on multiple occasions over the past decade, we found very little support for housing on the docks. Whether ferries being repaired or historic ships on display, most of the people we spoke to want to see ships in the dry docks again.

govan dry docks

Govan Docks Regeneration Trust

 

Since our work expanded to address maritime heritage in the River and Firth of Clyde region more broadly, we set up the Govan Docks Regeneration Trust SCIO Charity (GDRT) in 2016. The aim of this was to create a dedicated body working towards securing the future of the site with diverse stakeholders.

 

Since then GDRT has pursued two major consultation exercises. A local consultation funded by the National Lottery called "Govan Voices", which in 2019 gathered the views of the local community in Govan, about the future of the site following the failure of developers plns for 750 high rise flats. Govan Voices recorded huge local interest in the heritage and recreational potential of the docks, support for bringing back industry, yet only 5% support for housing on the site.

 

In parallel with Govan Voices, and with the crowdfunding support of our network, we sponsored GDRT to run an architecture competition in 2019, to bring forward design ideas for the docks. This involved students from the University of Strathclyde and Glasgow School of Art who contributed their degree projects to the competition. This culminated in an exhibition and award presentation at the historic Pearce Institute in Govan.