It will allow the Council to guide the regeneration process to provide new housing, sporting, leisure and community facilities, and space for 10,000 new jobs.

The Council's Executive Committee approved the proposal for the East End Local Development Strategy at a meeting today (Friday, January 25, 2008).

Its main purpose is to create a modern city district fit for the 21st century in which development proposals contribute to the improvement of health and well-being. Glasgow City Council also wants to see an increase in opportunities for local people to have choices in transport and mobility, and improvements in social welfare and community safety.

It will be a local-level planning policy framework with which the Council can guide the regeneration process to meet local needs.

The area, including the communities of Dalmarnock, Bridgeton, Parkhead and Carntyne/Haghill, was previously the focus of much of the city's heavy engineering activity and experienced significant decline in the 1980s from which it has not fully recovered.

It now consists of a number of dislocated and unconnected communities, with some residential areas left without adequate links to services and the rest of the city, often caused by the large tracts of derelict land.

Population levels are low and much of the area suffers from significant deprivation on a number of key indicators. A recent survey by the Glasgow Centre for Population and Health confirmed poor health as a major issue and showed that local people have low levels of satisfaction with many environmentally-based “quality of life” issues.

Councillor George Ryan, Executive Member for Development and Regeneration, said: “Glasgow City Council is committed to the continuing regeneration of the city, and has recognised that a number of areas, such as the East End, will require a more detailed and co-ordinated approach to regeneration.

“People in the East End of Glasgow suffer from some of the highest levels of deprivation and health inequalities in Scotland.

“But this new strategy will allow us to unlock the huge potential that exists in this area, and tied to the work to bring the 2014 Commonwealth Games to the city - such as the Athletes' Village in Dalmarnock - will help transform the lives of people who live there.”

Read more about the East End Local Development Strategy