Earlier this month 6 ideas were proposed for the re- design of George Square, Glasgow. We blogged about the this and made mention of which one,  some of us in the office would have liked. All of the proposals were ambitious and most involved some form of fountain or water feature. £15 million  was the budget and in this financial climate it seemed a large price tag  for a cash strapped council. The schemes drew strong negative public reaction and because of that the  Councillors have decided to drop the idea of a redesign and go for a “facelift” instead, involving  the replacement of the red surface of the square, but not much else, by the sounds of it. It was interesting to note that our choice was not the winning design. Yes, someone did win even though it is not going ahead. The winning design was by John McAlsan  (the first design we described in our blog) and one can only imagine that he would be pretty annoyed with the council: one minute he learns he has won and the next  he is told it is  abandoned. You can only feel sorry for those guys. But in saying that it is a brave move of the Council to back track so resoundingly.