Football pitch fence plan faces local backlash

Cathkin Park has been home to a football pitch for decades

A row has broken out over plans for a fence to be built around a football pitch in a Glasgow park.

A football academy was granted planning permission to install a 3m (9.8ft) fence in Cathkin Park.

The academy said it would help ensure the safety of children who train with them and was needed after vandalism.

But now a petition has been set up calling for the planning permission to be revoked.

The football pitch at Cathkin Park is leased from Glasgow City Council by the Jimmy Johnstone Academy, a charitable organisation set up in memory of the former Celtic Player.

The football academy has been using the pitch since 2009 and has two youth teams who play their homes matches in the Mount Florida park.

It estimates it hosts about 7,500 young footballers each year.

Cathkin Park is well known for its footballing history. It contains the site of the second Hampden Park, previously home to the football clubs Queen's Park and Third Lanark.

The old football stands are still visible around the current football pitch.

But a spokesman for the Jimmy Johnstone Football Academy said a fence was now necessary to ensure the safety of young players.

He said: “When we’ve got kids playing there’s dogs off the leash, people on bikes and various other things.

“When we’re not there, what we’ve found is people have set fires on the park, people will have barbeques on the park, they’ll drive cars onto the park and tear it up.

“In the summer time, there’s frequently broken bottles on the park when people have come down at the night time or at the weekend to party. You’ll also get drug paraphernalia, needles things like that at times.

“For that reason, it’s very, very difficult for us to make the pitch safe for its primary use.”

The football academy said the pitch has been vandalised in the past and on occasion quad bikes have been driven over it

The spokesman said the academy was disappointed at the local reaction and felt there was a lot of misunderstanding about the plans.

He continued: “I think people genuinely thought we were going to put a fence around the whole of Cathkin Park so that it was a private park and I can absolutely understand the outrage that would cause but that’s not what we are doing.

“We are putting a fence around an existing pitch within the park, which has been a football pitch for at least the last 50 years. The bottom line is this is a local asset that we want to improve.

“There’s council closures all over the city, but we have been maintaining this pitch for the last 14 years and we are going to continue to maintain it.

“We want to make further investment in the facility and it’s just disappointing that it’s been pretty poorly received. We can’t understand why people are so against it.”

The football club said dogs often run onto the park when matches are being played

The plans to build a fence received multiple objections from the local community, but planning permission was granted by Glasgow City Council in December 2023.

A petition was set earlier this month calling for the council to "revoke the planning permission and has received over 1,000 signatures.

Mount Florida Community Council objected to the original plans and is backing efforts to get planning permission revoked.

Chairperson Judith Pollock told BBC Scotland News there was a "groundswell" of opposition" to building the fence.

She said: "Basically there was an overall consensus people didn’t really want a fence restricting access [to the pitch].

"They shouldn’t be putting a locked fence over public ground. Now because it’s a football pitch people wouldn’t be able to access it when there is a match in play but they should be able to access it at other times of day."

The football pitch is situated within Cathkin Park in Mount Florida

Glasgow City Council confirmed that planning permission to erect a fence had been granted.

A spokesperson said temporary fencing that has been erected around the pitch was a "safety measure" and is separate from the planning permission.

The football academy hope to have the replacement fence constructed by summer this year.