Aberdeen

House Surveyor Aberdeen Scotland

Approximate Population: 202,370

Aberdeen is locally governed by Aberdeen City Council, which comprises forty-three councilors who represent the city’s wards and is headed by the Lord Provost who is currently Provost Peter Stephen.

From May 2003 until May 2007 the council was run with a Liberal Democrat and Conservatives coalition.   Following the May 2007 elections the Liberal Democrats formed a new coalition with the Scottish National Party.  The council consists of: 15 Liberal Democrat, 13 SNP, 10 Labour, 4 Conservative councilors and a single independent councillor.

Aberdeen is represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom by three constituencies: Aberdeen North, Aberdeen South and Gordon, of which the first two are wholly within the Aberdeen City council area while the latter also encompasses a large swathe of Aberdeenshire.

In the Scottish Parliament the city is represented again by three constituencies, all of which are solely within the council area: Aberdeen North, Aberdeen Central and Aberdeen South and by a further seven MSPs elected as part of the North East Scotland electoral region.

In the European Union, the city is represented by seven MEPs, as part of the all inclusive Scotland constituency in the European Parliament.

House Surveyor Aberdeen Scotland

Paisley

House Surveyor Paisley Scotland

Approximate Population: 74,000

The Piazza Shopping Centre, based in the heart of Paisley, has forged many links within the community and is the town’s busiest centre.   Featuring household names such as Somerfield, Subway, New Look, The Carphone Warehouse, The Piazza is also home to one of the Top 50 Post Office branches in the UK – one of two Scottish flagship stores, it was made a Crown Post Office in 2007.   The Piazza has also recently launched a Student Card, providing a range of discounts for the thousands of students that pass through Paisley every year.

The Paisley Centre is a three floored centre including a department store, an indoor market and over 50 shopping units including Marks and Spencer, Boots, Superdrug, Vodafone, Thorntons, The Body Shop and T-Mobile as well as many local outlets including Baru.

In recent years, however, the quality and variety of shopping has declined, with many of Paisley’s inhabitants choosing to shop at the Braehead Shopping Centre opened in 1998 and lying within Renfrewshire’s boundaries. The Silverburn Centre in the Pollok area of Glasgow also attracts much of Paisley’s custom. Through this competition and high tax rates for local businesses, many stores have been forced to close their doors.

Despite a poor perception, however, many retailers are still thriving in Paisley’s shopping centres, and adding colour to the town is the variety of busy continental and farmers’ markets which often take place in the town.

House Surveyor Paisley Scotland

Glasgow

House Surveyor

Glasgow Scotland

Approximate Population: 580,690

Glasgow has long been famed for shipbuilding and trade due to the city being positioned on the River Clyde.   Much of the trade took place in the nearby towns of Greenock and Port Glasgow as the River Clyde is too shallow at Glasgow for larger ships to reach.   The present site of Glasgow has been used since prehistoric times for settlement due to it being the forded point of the River Clyde furthest downstream, which also provided a natural area for salmon fishing.

The origins of Glasgow as an established city derive ultimately from its medieval position as Scotland’s second largest bishopric. Glasgow increased in importance during the 10th and 11th centuries as the site of this bishopric, reorganised by King David I of Scotland and John, Bishop of Glasgow.   There had been an earlier religious site established by Saint Mungo in the 6th century.

The bishopric became one of the largest and wealthiest in the Kingdom of Scotland, bringing wealth and status to the town. Between 1175 and 1178 this position was strengthened even further when Bishop Jocelin obtained for the episcopal settlement the status of burgh from King William I of Scotland, allowing the settlement to expand with the benefits of trading monopolies and other legal guarantees.   Sometime between 1189 and 1195 this status was supplemented by an annual fair, which survives to this day as the Glasgow Fair.

House Surveyor Glasgow Scotland

Dundee

House Surveyor

Dundee Scotland

Approximate Population: 141,930

Natives of Dundee are called Dundonians and are often recognisable by their distinctive dialect of Scots as well as their accent, which most noticeably substitutes the monophthong /e/ in place of the diphthong /ai/.   A significant proportion of the population are on a lower than average income or receive social security benefits.   More than half of the city’s council wards are among Scotland’s most deprived and fewer than half of the homes in Dundee are owner-occupied, a slight majority being owned by housing associations and the council, although it does rank higher than Glasgow.

Dundee’s population increased substantially with the urbanisation of the Industrial Revolution as did other British cities.   The most significant influx occurred in the mid-1800s with the arrival of Irish workers fleeing from the Potato Famine and attracted by industrialisation.   Today Dundee has 5,000 Northern Irish born residents in its boundary mostly due to universities and there is a large Northern Irish club which is based at Dundee Union.  The city also attracted immigrants from Italy, fleeing poverty and famine, and Poland, seeking refuge from the anti-Jewish pogroms in the 19th century, and later, World War II in the 20th.

Today, Dundee has a sizeable ethnic minority population, and has the third highest Asian population (~3,500) in Scotland after Glasgow and Edinburgh.  Dundee has attracted large numbers of Eastern Europeans and is predicted to expand further due to Bulgarian immigrants.  Abertay University and Dundee University draw a large number of students from abroad (mostly Irish and EU but with an increasing number from countries in the Far East), and students account for 14.2% of the population, the highest proportion of the four largest Scottish cities.  Dundee is also one of only four local authorities in Scotland to recycle more than 20% of its waste.

House Surveyor Dundee Scotland

East Kilbride

House Surveyor

East Kilbride Scotland

Approximate Population: 73,796

East Kilbride grew from a small village of around 900 inhabitants in 1930 to become eventually a large burgh.   Behind this growth lay the rapid industrialisation of the nineteenth century which left much of the working population throughout Scotland’s central belt from Glasgow to Edinburgh living in the housing stock built at the end of that century but accommodating far more people.

The Great War postponed any better housing as did the Treaty of Versailles and the period of post war settlement it created. In turn this was followed by the Great Depression.   After the Second World War, Glasgow, already suffering from chronic shortages of housing, had to deal with bomb damage from the war.

From this unlikely backdrop a new dawn emerged which would bring East Kilbride to its unlikely success.   In 1946 the Greater Glasgow Regional Plan allocated sites where overspill satellite “new towns” could be constructed to help alleviate the housing shortage.  Glasgow would also undertake the development of its peripheral housing estates.   East Kilbride was the first of five new towns in Scotland to be designated, in 1947, followed by Glenrothes (1948), Cumbernauld (1956), Livingston (1962) and Irvine (1964).

The town has been subdivided into residential precincts, each with its own local shops, primary schools and community facilities. The housing precincts surround the town centre, which is bound by a ringroad. Industrial estates are concentrated at sites to the north, west and south, on the outskirts of the town.

House Surveyor East Kilbride Scotland

Edinburgh

House Surveyor

Edinburgh Scotland

Approximate Population: 448,625

In the 10th century, with the collapse of the Danelaw the Scots captured the position.   Then in the 12th century a small town flourished at the base of the castle known as Edinburgh, along side which another community rose up to the East around the Abbey of Holyrood, known as Holyrood.

Together in the 13th century these became Royal Burghs. As a consequence of Edinburgh’s earlier Anglo-Saxon rule, Edinburgh and the Border counties lay in a disputed zone between England and Scotland, England claiming all Anglo-Saxon Domains as English territory, and Scotland claiming all territory as far south as Hadrian’s Wall.

The result was a long series of border wars and clashes, which often left Edinburgh Castle under English control.   It was not until the 15th century when Edinburgh remained for the most firmly under Scottish control, that King James IV of Scotland undertook to move the Royal Court from Stirling to Holyrood, making Edinburgh by proxy Scotland’s capital.

House Surveyor Edinburgh Scotland

Stirling

House Surveyor

Stirling Scotland

Approximate Population: 41,243

Standing near the castle, the Church of the Holy Rood (Holy Cross) is one of Stirling’s most historically important buildings.   The Church of the Holy Rude, which was rebuilt in the 1400s after Stirling suffered a catastrophic fire in 1405, is the only surviving church in the United Kingdom apart from Westminster Abbey, to have held a coronation.   On the 29 July 1567 the infant son of Mary Queen of Scots was crowned James VI of Scotland here. Musket shot marks from Cromwell’s troops during the War of the Three Kingdoms are clearly visible on the tower and apse.   Another important historical religious site in the area is Cambuskenneth Abbey.

During the War of the Three Kingdoms, the Battle of Stirling also took place in the centre of Stirling on 12 September 1648.

The fortifications continued to play a strategic military role during the 18th century Jacobite Risings. In 1715, the Earl of Mar failed to take control of the castle.   In January 1746, the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie seized control of the town but failed to take the Castle.   On their consequent retreat northwards, they blew up the church of St. Ninians where they had been storing munitions; only the tower survived and can be seen to this day.

House Surveyor Stirling Scotland

Inverness

House Surveyor

Inverness Scotland

Approximate Population: 40,949

Most of the traditional industries in Inverness such as distilling have been replaced by high-tech businesses, including the design and manufacture of diabetes diagnostic kits.   Highlands and Islands Enterprise has partly funded a Centre for Health Science with a view to attracting more businesses in the medical and medical devices business to the area.   Inverness is home to Scottish Natural Heritage following that body’s relocation from Edinburgh under the auspices of the Scottish Government’s decentralisation strategy.   SNH provides a large number of jobs in the area.

Inverness City Centre lies on the east bank of the river and is linked to the west side of the town by three road bridges (Ness Bridge, Friars Bridge and the Black (or Waterloo) Bridge) and by one of the town’s suspension foot bridges, the Grieg Street Bridge.  The traditional city centre was a triangle bounded by High Street, Church Street and Academy Street, within which Union Street and Queensgate are cross streets parallel to High Street.

Between Union Street and Queensgate is the Victorian Market, which contains a large number of small shops.   The main Inverness railway station is almost directly opposite the Academy Street entrance to the Market.   From the 1970s, the Eastgate Shopping Centre (Inverness) was developed to the east of High Street, with a substantial extension being completed in 2003.

House Surveyor Inverness Scotland