In Pollok’s handsome Househill Park near Glasgow’s southernmost boundaries, the concepts of biodiversity and rewilding are stretched to the point of absurdity. In the middle of an expanse of grass in front of a small housing scheme a large rectangle has been left uncut and overgrown. It’s an unsightly mess and looks like the sylvan equivalent of a Mohican hair-cut.
John McArthur, who has been tending the city’s parklands for more than three decades, can barely conceal his anger. “Why would you leave a wee bit of grass like that? It just looks hideous,” he says. “You’d be raging if you lived across the road from that.
There’s a place for biodiversity, but that’s not biodiversity. “They say it’s about creating corridors for wildlife. That’s not creating corridors; that’s leaving the place to look like a toilet.
Our guys who come to cut the grass now don't know what to cut.” I move closer to inspect the biodiversity on this patch of overgrown grass. There is a single thistle; a gathering of wee yellow flowers and the beginnings of a bed of hogweed.
“Other councils are doing it right, whereas Glasgow is doing it wrong,” says Mr McArthur. “This is about saving money. It’s nothing to do with biodiversity.
If they were doing biodiversity seriously they’d have to employ more people to manage it properly by digging out some species which threaten to overrun the others.” John McArthur (Image: staff) His concerns at what he describes as the aban.