On the 28th of October 1966 the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr William Ross (accompanied by his wife), formally ‘opened’ the first, and tallest, of the six 31-storey point blocks and two 26 to 28-storey slab blocks which were to be the Red Road housing estate [image_3].  Its innovative construction consisted of steel frame, supporting 5” in-situ laid concrete floors, and asbestos-cement insulation board and fully compressed asbestos cement sheeting for the outer cladding of the building [4]. The first tower was of a height unprecedented for residential construction in Britain. Red Road was far from finished when it was opened. Half the site was still under construction and the 1,350 dwellings would not be completed and ready to let until 1968.

The steel frame construction was novel for the time, allowing Red Road to achieve an unprecedented building height. As noted by the towerblock historian Miles Glendinning (publishing as Horsey) [5], the Glasgow Housing Corporation was keen to use any vacant land available in Glasgow for the purposes of housing construction. According to Red Road architect, Sam Bunton, the only way he could meet the relatively high density requirements set by the Corporation on the Red Road site (some 212 people per acre), was ‘to rise to a height of over 30 storeys’.

At the opening of the first block the then Scottish Secretary William Ross exhorted the project construction squads: ‘Let’s get on with it! Put everything you have into the completion of these blocks…. Remember what it is for…it is all for the ordinary people. It is your job to give them decent homes’.