Building boom in Glasgow as £1.2bn of developments under way

Glasgow has seen a building boom of £1.2bn worth of developments kicking off in the city.

Construction investments valued for building warrants in Scotland’s biggest city have doubled in only a year from £600m during 2023 to 2024 to £1.2bn in 2024 to 2025.

A council official said the huge value of building work represented to the city was mostly due to plans for bigger developments including tall buildings.

He told a council meeting that the number of building warrants applications and completion certificate acceptances vary each year.

Drawing attention to the £1.2bn figure, he said it “is quite a significant amount of building warrant application work coming through our service” and represented a “significant increase” compared to the previous year.

Pointing out the building projects can take a number of years, he added how major developments including high rise buildings have contributed to the huge hike.

Developers state the value of works, which is a monetary value of the construction involved, when they apply for a building warrant to Glasgow City Council. The £1.2bn relates to all types of applications including minor alterations and huge building projects.

The rise in building work was discussed at this week’s economy, housing, transport and regeneration city policy committee.

A report presented to councillors said: the council received 2,728 building warrant applications and issued 4,579 completion certificate acceptances in 2024 to 2025. The value of works that the building warrants represented was in excess of £1.2bn.”

The report said the council is meeting seven performance objectives but missing three targets.

Councillors were told at the committee there were problems with recruiting people to fill vacancies – which impacts performance.

Among missed objectives is that the council is not meeting a goal for 95% of first responses to applications within 20 working days – with figures ranging from 83% to 89% according to recent statistics.

The council report said: “With vacancies occurring due to leavers or retiral on top of ongoing vacancies, the service continued to re-advertise posts throughout the year with limited success externally. There was some success in promoting internally from existing staff but with the need to then backfill.

“We continue to try and fill any vacant posts.”