A Scottish town has bucked a 25-year tradition by refusing
an award painting them as the country's most dismal town, claiming it was “like
a poverty safari”.
The Carbuncle award was first awarded to Airdrie in 2000,
before lately being presented to eight more towns and one of them was even
presented back to back awards.
Port Glasgow was the intended recipient of the 2025
"Plook on the Plinth" trophy (plook meaning pimple in Scots), but a
heated exchange of words at the presentation event led to the award being
rejected before it was subsequently scrapped altogether.
John Glenday, a publisher at the architecture and design
magazine Urban Realm, said the Plook was “never intended to mock or punch down”
but insisted difficult conversations about our struggling towns need to be
addressed regardless.
He told OceanNewsUK: “Inevitably it is a polarising award - the
headlines say it all - and we’ve always been conscious of that but our guiding
remit was always to raise awareness of places that are struggling.
“We can’t ignore the issues that these places face: decaying
buildings; the collapse of the high street; changing economic indicators -
these can’t be swept under the rug.”
Mr Glenday admitted that despite the “double whammy” of
North Lanarkshire town Cumbernauld receiving back-to-back awards in 2001 and
2005, a combination of effort and time resulted in the town receiving Urban
Realm’s “Best Town” award in 2012.
Other winners include West of Scotland towns like Airdrie
and Linwood, but further north John O’ Groats and Aberdeen have also been
labelled as Scotland’s most dismal town/city.
Due to the “negative connotations of the Plook”, Mr Glenday
said the best way forward was to scrap the award going forward, instead
presenting Port Glasgow with the inaugural ‘Heart on your sleeve' award
recognising town cohesion in the face of hardship.
Social entrepreneur Kevin Green started PG25 - a campaign to
repopulate empty shops in the town’s historic John Wood street in the town’s
heritage quarter.
He offered to put the award in the bin for Mr Glenday as it
was presented to Port Glasgow, but instead the pair settled to save the award
and sit it on the bin.
Mr Green said he “didn’t have any intention of accepting the
award” and impressed that the Carbuncle Award in 2025 feels like “a poverty
safari”.
Despite it’s proud heritage as a pillar of Scottish
shipbuilding, the 250-year-old town slipped from one economic crisis to the
next and today is one of the most impoverished areas in Northern Britain.
Mr Green said: “He struck us as a Monday morning quarterback
coming in telling us all the stuff we already knew.”
Despite Port Glasgow’s rebuttal to the award ending its
25-year run, Mr Green doesn’t take credit for its retirement.
“It’s about infrastructure,” he continued, “it’s about the
force of the people and the potential of the people and the potential of the
town - that’s what’s got the award scrapped.
“It’s not me that’s got the award scrapped - it’s the
potential of Port Glasgow that got it scrapped and it only took John five
minutes off camera to actually see the potential of Port Glasgow."
The publisher admitted he returned home with the angry
pimple of a trophy before admitting the Plook had had its day - thus Port
Glasgow was awarded the inaugural "Heart on your sleeve" award.
“It’s an award to counter with yin to the Plot’s yang,”
explained Mr Glenday, “coming through as a more positive twist to the award
that the community felt they were able to embrace without the negative
connotations of the Plook but still get people talking about where they’re
going and what happens next.”
Mr Green will continue his work to further the ambitions of
Port Glasgow residents and hopes that others see Port Glasgow’s potential as
quickly as Urban Realm, beginning with “its potential to cure acne” as the
plucky port popped the plook once and for all.
