In September 1979, Hamilton District Council gave their thumbs up for plans to go ahead and make Blantyre beautiful.

To remove the demolition scar on Blantyre, trees, bushes and grass was to be planted in many separate areas. One prominent area was to be the Stonefield Public Park, immediately across from the proposed shopping centre on Glasgow Road. The park was nice enough, but where tenements have been removed, right along the roadside on the new extended part of the park, it needed tidying.

The open ground between Hastie’s Farm and Glasgow Road, then used as a carpark and market site was also to be landscaped. In Auchinraith Road, trees and bushes were to be planted at the site of the proposed Trading estate, which had still to be built. Similarly, both sides of the new EK Expressway were to have trees planted, in the hope that in future decades, the traffic would entirely be screened from residential areas.

The trees in Glasgow Road are now tall, having grown considerably in the last couple of decades. There is no doubt that if left untouched, these 40 year old trees will have, in a generation or so, accomplished their purpose and turned Glasgow Road into a leafy avenue.