Bruce Report
Encyclopedia
The Bruce Report is the name commonly given to two urban redevelopment reports of the Glasgow
Corporation (the former local authority area for the city).
Both reports were authored by a Glasgow Corporation Engineer of the time Robert Bruce lending them their collective name. The name encompasses the First planning report to the Highways and Planning Committee of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow, which was published in the closing stages of the Second World War (March 1945) and the Clyde Valley Regional Plan. These reports recommended a series of initiatives designed to transform the city over the following fifty years. Some of these initiatives were put into practice; others were not. The reports and their implementation significantly shaped modern day Glasgow, a good example of the scope of their impact being the M8 motorway which was built following proposals in the report. During the mid 20th century much of the city's population were resettled to new towns and housing schemes also following recommendations in Bruce's reports. The civic, economic, political, architectural, geographic and demographic landscape of modern Glasgow would have been radically different without the influence of these two reports. Had the Bruce Report been implemented in its entirety, the city would probably have been unrecognisable.
, Anderston, Cowcaddens and Charing Cross would be cleared to make way for concrete office buildings, many of which still stand today. For example southern reaches of Townhead were re-zoned for educational use in preparation for the former Royal College of Science and Technology
's growth into a university
. The college's inclusion in the new University of Strathclyde
in 1964 made use of this space.
Among the buildings earmarked for demolition were many which are now regarded as Glasgow's most significant architectural assets. Bruce's proposals called for the demolition of (amongst others) Glasgow Central Station
, The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
, Glasgow School of Art
, designed by the renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh
and the Glasgow City Chambers
which is considered the civic heart of the city. Glasgow Royal Infirmary
would also have been completely demolished and replaced by a new hospital. Robert Bruce's justification for these radical proposals was the creation of a new "healthy and beautiful city" based on formal 1950s architecture. Ultimately less draconian measures were sought for the regeneration of the city centre.
Many of the large mixed-use commercial and residential developments which went up in the 1960s in the light of the report’s recommendations were flawed in their execution, being of contemporary Brutalist architecture which quickly dated and aged badly over time, and soon fell out of favour. The infamous Anderston Centre
, built in the early 1970s was a prime example of this – the grand “megastructure” designed by renowned architect Richard Seifert
had fallen into partial dereliction by the early 1990s, and came to symbolise the mistakes of the city’s 1960s regeneration efforts.
and Cumbernauld
were created in the areas surrounding the city as part of this redevelopment. The programme also involved the creation of new urban housing schemes such as Castlemilk
, Drumchapel
and Easterhouse
, all of which are on the edges of the city.
As with most other aspects of the city's redevelopment, the housing clearances were not carried out exactly to Bruce's proposed plan. Bruce wanted all of Glasgow's citizens to be rehoused within the city boundaries. In building the new towns, a significant portion of the city's population were moved outwith the jurisdiction of the Glasgow Corporation. This resulted in a dramatic reduction in the city's reported population between the start of the 20th and 21st centuries. The area's actual population increased during this period and the urban spread of Glasgow now covers a much larger area than it did at the start of the 20th century. Bruce's underlying aim of a less densely populated city was ultimately achieved. At its peak in the 1930s Glasgow's inner city population was 1.1 million, today it is roughly 600,000. Glasgow remains Scotland's largest city however, with the population of Greater Glasgow close to 1.8 million and the entire Greater Glasgow conurbation is now 2.3 million. 44% of Scotland's entire population.
The success of the other key goal of the slum clearances (improving quality of life for Glasgow's citizens) is harder to quantify, however it is worth noting that many of the housing schemes and new towns created at this time remain among the most deprived communities in Scotland. As with other mid-20th century urban regeneration "grand schemes" Glasgow's regeneration arguably lost sight of the real needs of its populace.
- a motorway "box" which would have encircled the city centre. The proposed network included a Renfrew motorway, a Monklands motorway, a Maryhill motorway, a Stirling motorway and a south eastern motorway connecting Glasgow with the wider motorway network. These proposals were not acted on until the 1960s when the initiative began as a sweeping programme of clearing and construction. The Monklands and Renfrew motorways were completed forming what is now known as the M8. These two motorways form the northern and western flanks of the planned ring road. However carving a motorway through long standing communities - much of Charing Cross and Anderston were completely destroyed in its construction - caused such protest that the rest of the Inner Ring Road initiative was shelved. The Stirling motorway became the present day M80
and its initial Glasgow section was openened in 1992 as the Stepps
bypass, and the complete route through Cumbernauld
was fully opened in 2011.
An extension to the M74
into the city centre to meet the M8 motorway was completed in June 2011. This will see the completion of the southern section of Bruce's planned ring road, albeit on a marginally different route than originally proposed.
Bruce's report recommended that the Eastern flank of the Inner Ring Road be constructed along the route of Glasgow's High Street. Again this would have necessitated the demolition of many properties, including some of historic and/or architectural value. It was shelved in the face of strong local opposition.
Although not directly part of the Bruce Report, the wider plans for the Monkland Motorway contained proposals to create a South Link Motorway which would have ran continued south from the Stirling Motorway terminus at Provan Gas Works
and biscected the East End to link with the M74. This proposal has eventually evolved into the Glasgow East End Regeneration Route
. This plan proposes a road (not a motorway) which would link the M74 to the M8 through the East End of Glasgow. If successfully implemented this plan together with the M74 extension would effectively see Bruce's planned inner ring completed.
There are no signs that the Bruce Plan's proposed Maryhill motorway will ever be implemented in any way. Bruce's proposals for a ring road with four arterial routes running off it seems unlikely to ever be fully realised.
both served primarily southbound destinations. Queen Street
and Buchanan Street
mainly served northbound destinations.
In order to rationalise the city's mainline services, Bruce suggested that all four Victorian railway stations be demolished and replaced with two new purpose built stations. A new Glasgow North station was proposed roughly on the site of Buchanan Street station (occupying a larger area) to replace Buchanan Street and Queen Street stations. A Glasgow South station was proposed on the approximate site of Glasgow Central station to replace Central and St Enoch stations. Bruce's plan then called for a new bus station on the Queen Street site, with the "low level" railway station there remaining to provide suburban services and to connect the new bus station to the rail network.
These plans were never implemented, and all four stations remained until the 1960s when the Beeching Axe
reforms changed the shape of rail services across Scotland
. England
, and Wales
. Beeching's reforms spelt the end for both Buchanan Street and St Enoch stations which closed, effectively rationalising rail services in the city along similar lines to Bruce's two station plan, but without requiring the demolition of four stations and construction of two new ones. Beeching's reforms also removed low level services from Glasgow Central station, but these were reintroduced in the late 1970s. Glasgow Central has recently undergone extensive, careful and sympathetic renovation and remains one of the city's architectural assets to this day.
Feelings about the Bruce Report still run high today: some argue the primary motivation was saving money for the Scotland Office and the British government, though it is hard to reconcile this with such a sweeping and expensive plan. If cost savings were genuinely the goal, expensive demolition and regeneration schemes seem unlikely. Bruce's prediction that the city would transition to a service based economy was ultimately proved correct. Today, the city's heavy industrial base has suffered almost continuous decline in the post-war era, whilst service industries (most notably education, research, financial services and tourism) have flourished and nowadays form the backbone of Glasgow's economy.
Seen within the context of its time, it seems likely that the report was genuinely motivated by a desire to improve the city. Architectural tastes in the early 20th century did not recognise the merits of then-recently outmoded Edwardian and Victorian buildings, seeing them simply as old and outmoded in much the same way as contemporary tastes often view mid-20th century architecture. The post-war drive toward a modern, clean and socially responsible Britain resulted in many sweeping schemes such as the Bruce Report. Most of these had mixed success and failure, partly because of flawed inception and partly through incomplete execution. Indeed, some of the Bruce Report's legacy has been reversed--new local authority housing developments, for example, have been constructed in the inner areas of the city, leading to the abandonment and demolition of the 1950s-era schemes on the outer periphery of the city.
Imagining a Glasgow either without the Bruce Report or having followed it to the letter conjures two images very different from both each other and the vibrant modern city that Glasgow is today. Those parts of the plan that were implemented can be argued to have contributed in equal measure to the strengths and the shortcomings of Glasgow today.
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
Corporation (the former local authority area for the city).
Both reports were authored by a Glasgow Corporation Engineer of the time Robert Bruce lending them their collective name. The name encompasses the First planning report to the Highways and Planning Committee of the Corporation of the City of Glasgow, which was published in the closing stages of the Second World War (March 1945) and the Clyde Valley Regional Plan. These reports recommended a series of initiatives designed to transform the city over the following fifty years. Some of these initiatives were put into practice; others were not. The reports and their implementation significantly shaped modern day Glasgow, a good example of the scope of their impact being the M8 motorway which was built following proposals in the report. During the mid 20th century much of the city's population were resettled to new towns and housing schemes also following recommendations in Bruce's reports. The civic, economic, political, architectural, geographic and demographic landscape of modern Glasgow would have been radically different without the influence of these two reports. Had the Bruce Report been implemented in its entirety, the city would probably have been unrecognisable.
City Centre
Central to the report's recommendations were a set of radical proposals which amounted to wholesale demolition of a large section of the city centre. These would have involved knocking down many historic and architecturally important Victorian and Georgian buildings. The report advocated rebuilding most of the city centre to a single design with the aim of creating a coherently planned city. Part of this plan involved removing residential dwellings from the central area and replacing them with commercial developments that would house new service industries. Various inner urban tenement slums in central districts such as TownheadTownhead
-Location:Townhead has no fixed boundaries. In ancient times it was the undeveloped area north of the cathedral and town. If we use this description then it is bordered to the west by the area of Cowcaddens, to the north by Sighthill and the east by Royston and south by Merchant City...
, Anderston, Cowcaddens and Charing Cross would be cleared to make way for concrete office buildings, many of which still stand today. For example southern reaches of Townhead were re-zoned for educational use in preparation for the former Royal College of Science and Technology
Royal College of Science and Technology
The Royal College of Science and Technology, situated at 138 George Street in Glasgow, Scotland was the principal predecessor institution of the University of Strathclyde, and now serves as one of the main educational buildings of the campus.-History:...
's growth into a university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
. The college's inclusion in the new University of Strathclyde
University of Strathclyde
The University of Strathclyde , Glasgow, Scotland, is Glasgow's second university by age, founded in 1796, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university...
in 1964 made use of this space.
Among the buildings earmarked for demolition were many which are now regarded as Glasgow's most significant architectural assets. Bruce's proposals called for the demolition of (amongst others) Glasgow Central Station
Glasgow Central station
Glasgow Central is the larger of the two present main-line railway terminals in Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland. The station was opened by the Caledonian Railway on 31 July 1879 and is currently managed by Network Rail...
, The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is a museum and art gallery in Glasgow, Scotland. The building houses one of Europe's great civic art collections...
, Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art
Glasgow School of Art is one of only two independent art schools in Scotland, situated in the Garnethill area of Glasgow.-History:It was founded in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design. In 1853, it changed its name to The Glasgow School of Art. Initially it was located at 12 Ingram...
, designed by the renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, watercolourist and artist. He was a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and also the main representative of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom. He had a considerable influence on European design...
and the Glasgow City Chambers
Glasgow City Chambers
The City Chambers in Glasgow, Scotland has functioned as the headquarters of Glasgow City Council since 1996, and of preceding forms of civic government in the city since 1889, located on the eastern side of the city's George Square...
which is considered the civic heart of the city. Glasgow Royal Infirmary
Glasgow Royal Infirmary
The Glasgow Royal Infirmary is a large teaching hospital, operated by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde,. With a capacity of around 1000 beds, the hospital campus covers an area of around 20 acres, situated on the north-eastern edge of the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland.-History:Designed by Robert...
would also have been completely demolished and replaced by a new hospital. Robert Bruce's justification for these radical proposals was the creation of a new "healthy and beautiful city" based on formal 1950s architecture. Ultimately less draconian measures were sought for the regeneration of the city centre.
Many of the large mixed-use commercial and residential developments which went up in the 1960s in the light of the report’s recommendations were flawed in their execution, being of contemporary Brutalist architecture which quickly dated and aged badly over time, and soon fell out of favour. The infamous Anderston Centre
Anderston Centre
The Anderston Centre is a mixed-use commercial and residential complex, and former bus station located in the Anderston area of Glasgow, Scotland...
, built in the early 1970s was a prime example of this – the grand “megastructure” designed by renowned architect Richard Seifert
Richard Seifert
Reubin Seifert - normally known as Richard Seifert was a British architect, best known for designing the Centrepoint tower and Tower 42 , once the tallest building in the City of London...
had fallen into partial dereliction by the early 1990s, and came to symbolise the mistakes of the city’s 1960s regeneration efforts.
Rehousing Glasgow's slum population
One proposal in the report was implemented almost in its entirety: the demolition of Glasgow's slum housing. Bruce suggested that many of Glasgow's residential areas be torn down, as a great many of these unplanned developments had become slums. He proposed that their inhabitants be rehoused in new developments on the periphery of the city. The key goals of this proposal was the creation of a less densely populated city and a greater quality of life for its inhabitants. Beginning in the 1950s Glasgow's clearance programme relocated some 300,000 of the city's population. New towns, such as East KilbrideEast Kilbride
East Kilbride is a large suburban town in the South Lanarkshire council area, in the West Central Lowlands of Scotland. Designated as Scotland's first new town in 1947, it forms part of the Greater Glasgow conurbation...
and Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld is a Scottish new town in North Lanarkshire. It was created in 1956 as a population overspill for Glasgow City. It is the eighth most populous settlement in Scotland and the largest in North Lanarkshire...
were created in the areas surrounding the city as part of this redevelopment. The programme also involved the creation of new urban housing schemes such as Castlemilk
Castlemilk
Castlemilk is a district of Glasgow, Scotland. It lies to the south of the city adjacent to Rutherglen, Croftfoot, Simshill and the separate village of Carmunnock...
, Drumchapel
Drumchapel
Drumchapel , known to locals and residents as 'The Drum', is part of the city of Glasgow, Scotland, having been annexed from Dunbartonshire in 1938. It borders Bearsden to the east and Clydebank to the west . The area is bordered by Knightswood and Yoker in Glasgow. The name derives from the...
and Easterhouse
Easterhouse
Easterhouse is a suburb about east of Glasgow city centre, Scotland. It was partially built on land gained from the county of Lanarkshire as part of a boundary expansion of Glasgow before the Second World War. Building began in the mid-1950s by the then local authority, Glasgow Corporation...
, all of which are on the edges of the city.
As with most other aspects of the city's redevelopment, the housing clearances were not carried out exactly to Bruce's proposed plan. Bruce wanted all of Glasgow's citizens to be rehoused within the city boundaries. In building the new towns, a significant portion of the city's population were moved outwith the jurisdiction of the Glasgow Corporation. This resulted in a dramatic reduction in the city's reported population between the start of the 20th and 21st centuries. The area's actual population increased during this period and the urban spread of Glasgow now covers a much larger area than it did at the start of the 20th century. Bruce's underlying aim of a less densely populated city was ultimately achieved. At its peak in the 1930s Glasgow's inner city population was 1.1 million, today it is roughly 600,000. Glasgow remains Scotland's largest city however, with the population of Greater Glasgow close to 1.8 million and the entire Greater Glasgow conurbation is now 2.3 million. 44% of Scotland's entire population.
The success of the other key goal of the slum clearances (improving quality of life for Glasgow's citizens) is harder to quantify, however it is worth noting that many of the housing schemes and new towns created at this time remain among the most deprived communities in Scotland. As with other mid-20th century urban regeneration "grand schemes" Glasgow's regeneration arguably lost sight of the real needs of its populace.
Transport
The scope of Bruce's proposals was not limited to housing reform, Glasgow's transport infrastructure was also a target for change. Bruce proposed that quality, high speed transport links were vital if the city was going to transition to a service based economy against the background of a declining industrial base.Roads
Bruce proposed the creation of a system of arterial motorways into the city converging to form a Glasgow Inner Ring RoadGlasgow Inner Ring Road
The Glasgow Inner Ring Road was a proposed ring road encircling the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland. Construction of the roads began in 1965, and half of its circumference was completed by 1972, but no subsequent construction was made and the remaining plans were formally abandoned in 1980...
- a motorway "box" which would have encircled the city centre. The proposed network included a Renfrew motorway, a Monklands motorway, a Maryhill motorway, a Stirling motorway and a south eastern motorway connecting Glasgow with the wider motorway network. These proposals were not acted on until the 1960s when the initiative began as a sweeping programme of clearing and construction. The Monklands and Renfrew motorways were completed forming what is now known as the M8. These two motorways form the northern and western flanks of the planned ring road. However carving a motorway through long standing communities - much of Charing Cross and Anderston were completely destroyed in its construction - caused such protest that the rest of the Inner Ring Road initiative was shelved. The Stirling motorway became the present day M80
M80 motorway
The M80 is a motorway in central Scotland, running through Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, Falkirk and Stirling and links the M8, the M73 and M9 motorways. Following completion in 2011, this road is long. From 1992 - 2011, the road was in two sections; the southern section, Glasgow to Stepps and the...
and its initial Glasgow section was openened in 1992 as the Stepps
Stepps
Stepps is a small town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, on the north-eastern outskirts of Glasgow. The town consists of Stepps Village, Cardowan, Stepps Hill and Millerston...
bypass, and the complete route through Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld is a Scottish new town in North Lanarkshire. It was created in 1956 as a population overspill for Glasgow City. It is the eighth most populous settlement in Scotland and the largest in North Lanarkshire...
was fully opened in 2011.
An extension to the M74
M74 motorway
The A74 and M74 motorways form a major motorway in Scotland. Following an extension opened on 28 June 2011, it connects the M8 motorway west of Glasgow to the English border at Gretna, creating an alternative route for traffic moving from the south to the west of the city...
into the city centre to meet the M8 motorway was completed in June 2011. This will see the completion of the southern section of Bruce's planned ring road, albeit on a marginally different route than originally proposed.
Bruce's report recommended that the Eastern flank of the Inner Ring Road be constructed along the route of Glasgow's High Street. Again this would have necessitated the demolition of many properties, including some of historic and/or architectural value. It was shelved in the face of strong local opposition.
Although not directly part of the Bruce Report, the wider plans for the Monkland Motorway contained proposals to create a South Link Motorway which would have ran continued south from the Stirling Motorway terminus at Provan Gas Works
Provan Gas Works
Provan Gas Works is an industrial gas holding plant in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The plant is in the Provanmill area of the city, and was built by Glasgow Corporation between 1900 and 1904...
and biscected the East End to link with the M74. This proposal has eventually evolved into the Glasgow East End Regeneration Route
Glasgow East End Regeneration Route
The Glasgow East End Regeneration Route is a new road in the East End of Glasgow, Scotland. Currently under construction, the first phase was opened in 2011 with the second phase planned to open in 2012...
. This plan proposes a road (not a motorway) which would link the M74 to the M8 through the East End of Glasgow. If successfully implemented this plan together with the M74 extension would effectively see Bruce's planned inner ring completed.
There are no signs that the Bruce Plan's proposed Maryhill motorway will ever be implemented in any way. Bruce's proposals for a ring road with four arterial routes running off it seems unlikely to ever be fully realised.
Rail
As well as recommending changes to Glasgow's road network, Bruce also suggested radical changes to Glasgow's railways. At the time of the Bruce Report, the city had four major railway stations. Central and St EnochSt Enoch railway station
-External links:* *...
both served primarily southbound destinations. Queen Street
Glasgow Queen Street railway station
Glasgow Queen Street is a railway station in Glasgow, Scotland, the smaller of the city's two main line railway termini and the third-busiest station in Scotland. It is between George Street to the south and Cathedral Street Bridge to the north, at the northern end of Queen Street adjacent to...
and Buchanan Street
Buchanan Street railway station
Buchanan Street Station was the least known of Glasgow's four main terminal railway stations, the other three being Central, Queen St and St Enoch...
mainly served northbound destinations.
In order to rationalise the city's mainline services, Bruce suggested that all four Victorian railway stations be demolished and replaced with two new purpose built stations. A new Glasgow North station was proposed roughly on the site of Buchanan Street station (occupying a larger area) to replace Buchanan Street and Queen Street stations. A Glasgow South station was proposed on the approximate site of Glasgow Central station to replace Central and St Enoch stations. Bruce's plan then called for a new bus station on the Queen Street site, with the "low level" railway station there remaining to provide suburban services and to connect the new bus station to the rail network.
These plans were never implemented, and all four stations remained until the 1960s when the Beeching Axe
Beeching Axe
The Beeching Axe or the Beeching Cuts are informal names for the British Government's attempt in the 1960s to reduce the cost of running British Railways, the nationalised railway system in the United Kingdom. The name is that of the main author of The Reshaping of British Railways, Dr Richard...
reforms changed the shape of rail services across Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. Beeching's reforms spelt the end for both Buchanan Street and St Enoch stations which closed, effectively rationalising rail services in the city along similar lines to Bruce's two station plan, but without requiring the demolition of four stations and construction of two new ones. Beeching's reforms also removed low level services from Glasgow Central station, but these were reintroduced in the late 1970s. Glasgow Central has recently undergone extensive, careful and sympathetic renovation and remains one of the city's architectural assets to this day.
21st century perspectives and the Bruce Report
With hindsight, many of the suggestions in the Bruce Report might seem draconian or even idiotic. From a contemporary perspective many find it hard to imagine advocating the wholesale demolition of so much of the city, or how so many buildings we now recognise as significant and beautiful could have been earmarked for destruction. In some ways, the implementation of the Bruce Report was symptomatic of the naivety of the 1960s city fathers in their thinking that they could quite literally build their way out of poverty and decline.Feelings about the Bruce Report still run high today: some argue the primary motivation was saving money for the Scotland Office and the British government, though it is hard to reconcile this with such a sweeping and expensive plan. If cost savings were genuinely the goal, expensive demolition and regeneration schemes seem unlikely. Bruce's prediction that the city would transition to a service based economy was ultimately proved correct. Today, the city's heavy industrial base has suffered almost continuous decline in the post-war era, whilst service industries (most notably education, research, financial services and tourism) have flourished and nowadays form the backbone of Glasgow's economy.
Seen within the context of its time, it seems likely that the report was genuinely motivated by a desire to improve the city. Architectural tastes in the early 20th century did not recognise the merits of then-recently outmoded Edwardian and Victorian buildings, seeing them simply as old and outmoded in much the same way as contemporary tastes often view mid-20th century architecture. The post-war drive toward a modern, clean and socially responsible Britain resulted in many sweeping schemes such as the Bruce Report. Most of these had mixed success and failure, partly because of flawed inception and partly through incomplete execution. Indeed, some of the Bruce Report's legacy has been reversed--new local authority housing developments, for example, have been constructed in the inner areas of the city, leading to the abandonment and demolition of the 1950s-era schemes on the outer periphery of the city.
Imagining a Glasgow either without the Bruce Report or having followed it to the letter conjures two images very different from both each other and the vibrant modern city that Glasgow is today. Those parts of the plan that were implemented can be argued to have contributed in equal measure to the strengths and the shortcomings of Glasgow today.