Around 40 members of Living Rent’s tenants’ and community union disrupted Glasgow City Council’s State of the City Economy conference to protest underinvestment in the city’s communities. This conference was attended by leaders of the tourism industry and politicians including Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken and First minister John Swinney. 

This action was part of our union’s campaign to demand the council invest revenue from its 5% tourist tax into public services rather than ringfencing the funds for tourism and marketing.

Glasgow’s visitor levy will be implemented from 2027 and is expected to raise over £16 million per year. The council intends to invest in initiatives that benefit the tourism industry such as the SEC, reimbursing AirBnB landlords and marketing the city. However, Living Rent members say money should be used to bring Strathclyde’s bus network back into public control and to establish a new publicly-owned bus company for the region.

Our members have made several attempts to engage with councillors about the proposals. Susan Aitken’s constituents in our Shawlands branch have written to her, asking to meet with us. She has refused any meetings. Shawlands members have attended constituency surgeries trying to speak to her. She did not attend those surgeries. Our union requested representation on the city-wide visitor levy forum. We were blocked from participating.

Having exhausted all means of trying to formally meet her, we staged a peaceful protest interrupting her opening address at the City Council’s State of the City Economy conference.

Upon entering the conference, our members were met with a disproportionate response from GCC’s security, who were aggressive, even punching one of our members and had another in a headlock.

Members who did manage to get through, peacefully marched through the hall to highlight the issues we face, including sky high rent and bills, expensive and unreliable buses and crumbling public services. They expected to have a wee jolly about how to make the city work for them, but we rained on their parade and demanded the city works for us.

We are sick of GCC prioritising the interests of big business and profiteers instead of investing in the public services that Glasgow residents want and need. We’re happy that as result of our intervention, Susan Aitken has subsequently agreed to meet with us and we hope that she fulfils that promise.

Our buses are operated by over 40 private operators, and we have the highest fares in the UK. Edinburgh’s publicly-owned Lothian buses charge £2.20 for an Adult Single compared to £3.10 here. In return for this premium, we receive unreliable services, limited routes, and double charges due to lack of integration between our transport services.

Our solution is to bring the buses back into public ownership, and there is a groundswell of support for our demands. A recent SPT consultation found that 83% of constituents in the Strathclyde region support proposals for a municipal bus system. Indeed, the SNP pledged to transition Glasgow to a publicly owned bus system during the 2022 council elections.

Susan Aitken has talked up the ‘positive change’ in the Glasgow pointing to the renovation of George Square; new hotels and luxury developments in the city centre, global brands and big banks moving into the city centre; and the council setting up a ‘destination marketing organisation’, whatever the purpose of this vague entity is.

But our city’s challenges are not vague, they’re pretty straightforward. We have an astonishing lack of affordable housing, an inefficient and expensive public transport network, underfunded schools, and rubbish all over the streets among a litany of other issues we face day to day. Yet the council persistently fails to address any of these issues.

Susan Aitken may deride us as part of the collective of these ‘individuals, often politically motivated, who publicly run Glasgow down’ but we know it is the GCC who are running Glasgow down by failing to invest in public services which badly need it.

We badly need a functioning bus service. Half of our city doesn't own a car, and as bus users we all have experiences of being let down by the service here. Whether it’s having to wait 30 mins for the next bus; using multiple bus routes to get from one part of the city to another; paying for multiple tickets because the buses aren’t under the same company; or having to choose even more expensive means of travelling because of our unreliable buses.

Worse is that the private bus companies continue to profit from this unreliable and inefficient service. The council needs to fund a public bus system which supports the working class people of this city to move around more easily and cheaply. On top of that, a publicly owned bus service would also bring ticket revenues back into the city and would likely discourage car usage to make the city less congested and greener.

The private companies profiting from our commutes are to blame for this, and we urgently need the council to make a public bus system which supports working class people to get around. This way, we’d be safer, revenues would go back into the city, and there would even be less congestion.”

The current bus network is a rip-off and the irony is, a publicly run service wouldn’t just benefit our communities, but it would actually better serve the tourists who the GCC are so eager to attract to our city. 

Our members aren’t willing to see the revenue from the tourist tax be plundered by big business and marketing quangos. Let’s use the tourist tax to bring our publicly owned buses back.