Quango-tastic Glasgow style

You may have noticed today that a quango in Glasgow (City Building) has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The ex council department, which was made into a quango by Steven Purcell, is led by it's managing director Willie Docherty.

Mr Docherty is married to Glasgow City labour councillor Sadie Docherty.

A couple of years ago Mr Docherty was featured in the Glasgow Evening Times declaring a bit of construction industry megalomania...

...."By the time of the Commonwealth Games, we will probably be the dominant construction force in the West of Scotland," says Docherty....

Not bad for an ex council department turned into a publicly funded business which is now competing against the traditional construction companies. You know, the ones that built themselves up over generations using investors etc. They weren't lucky enough to be given shedloads of cash and a leg up by pals dishing out the contracts.

City Building were fortunate enough to win the contract to build new premises for City Refrigeration, who had to move to make way for the new M74 extension. City Refrigeration boss
Willie Haughey received over £16 million in compensation for the trouble. (Other businesses also received compensation). Mr Haughey has donated over £1 million to the Labour Party since the end of 2003.

Mr Haughey is a member of the much publicised 'Team Glasgow', which was a pet project of Mr Purcell. The key initiatives of the project included -

• Buy land and any unsold houses, finish any unfinished housing developments

• £36M Better Glasgow fund has been set up for regeneration work

• Empty schools will be turned into new business academies

• Council will offer smaller businesses loans at low interest

• Developers can pay for land once the economy recovers

Mr Haughey has today denied 'helping out' Mr Purcell. He is also a football fan.


Small world, eh?