M8 Bridge to Nowhere

Bridge to Nowhere is a nickname used to refer to various unfinished structures around the M8 motorway in the centre of Glasgow, Scotland. They were built in the 1960s as part of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road project but left incomplete for several years. One 'bridge', at Charing Cross, was completed in the 1990s as an office block. The Anderston Footbridge, a pedestrian bridge south of St Patrick's church, was finally completed in 2013 as part of a walking and cycling route.

A third 'Bridge to Nowhere' was created in 2008 following the demolition of a hotel a few blocks away from the M8 but its remains were finally removed in 2017.

The structure officially called the Charing Cross Podium, was always intended to have a development of some sort on the top level. However, the incomplete structure looked like a bridge and was often referred to as the 'Bridge to Nowhere'.

When the western flank of the inner ring road was being prepared for tender in the mid-1960s the designer, Scott Wilson & Partners, advised Glasgow Corporation to include the development as part of the motorway construction contract. This advice was ignored with the Corporation hoping that a developer would take on the project, along with the costs. The original masterplan for the area was devised by the architectural firm Richard Seifert & Partners, which entailed the construction of two large megastructures in the area - one of which was the Anderston Centre, the other being the Charing Cross Complex, the latter making use of the podium structure. In the end, the Charing Cross scheme was scaled back considerably in scope and size, and the result was the podium remained incomplete for over two decades, attracting much notoriety at a time when the entire M8 construction project was the subject of very divided public opinion. In the mid-1990s Glasgow District Council at last found an interested party, and a short time later an office block was built. Occupiers of the building known as Tay House include Barclays Bank.

The Anderston Footbridge, 600 m (660 yd) south of the Charing Cross Podium, was originally planned as the main pedestrian connection between the new housing estates on the western side of the motorway to the Anderston Cross Commercial Centre but the size of the latter development was scaled back in size – meaning that the bridge terminated in mid-air above the vacant land, which was eventually built upon in 1981 when a Holiday Inn hotel (nowadays the Glasgow Marriott) was constructed on the site.

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