Torrance, East Dunbartonshire

History

The name comes from the Gaelic An Toran which means 'under the hills'. or from brythonic "Torr-Ant" which means 'side of valley'

The village of Torrance is located in 'The Eleven Ploughs of Balgrochan'. The 'Eleven Ploughlands' are part of the estate of the Grahams of Mugdock, which had been feued in 1630 to local occupiers by the Marquess of Montrose. The feuars, originally holding their land unenclosed, each received an enclosed piece of land in 1735, as was common at the time. The village of Torrance developed some time later.

Although weavers were among the earliest residents of the village, limestone, coal and ironstone extraction also began to emerge as a local industry.

For several years, the canal wharf at Hungryside was Torrance's main connection with the outside world. However, this began to change in 1879 with the opening of a train station by the Kelvin Valley Railway Company.

Local amenities

Torrance offers local amenities to its residents including one hairdresser, one beauty salon, tennis courts, health centre, mechanics, garden centre, bakery, a post office, chemist, Chinese takeaway and newsagents not to mention the large and new Torrance Church of Scotland at the foot of School Road and St. Dominic's RC Church at the top. The local SCOTMID won Milk Retailer of the Year in 2005.

Torrance has three pubs; the Wheatsheaf Inn, the Torrance Inn and the Village Inn with another bar in the bowling club.

The surrounding East Dunbartonshire area is also an affluent area with many new leisure facilities. East Dunbartonshire was voted the second best district in Scotland to reside in during 2007. Torrance had, for many years, an irregular once an hour bus service into Glasgow. However, on 10 June 2011 it was announced the community would benefit from better transport links. As it was, SPT operated a once an hour service, however, from 19 June an additional First service (27A) would operate 7 days a week at once an hour intervals. It will operate at around 25 minutes past the hour with extra journeys at peak times. First Glasgow have withdrawn their Service X86 from Torrance which operated twice daily, each way.

Torrance Primary School

The village is the location of Torrance Primary School which has around 250 pupils. It has three pitches, one of them is rock, another red ash and another which is ash. Primary 7 pupils can transfer onto Boclair Academy in the nearby Bearsden.

Torrance Initiative

Torrance Community Initiative is a registered charity aiming to provide new custom-built community facilities in the village.

The land held in "trust" by Torrance Community Initiative for the benefit of the community is a 10-acre (40,000 m²) site. Unfortunately the planning permission granted in 1977 for a multi-use clubhouse for the former land owners - a boys' club, was never brought to fruition. The land was designated as Green Belt in the 1990s, although it forms an intrusion between two parts of the village and most people believed it was simply Greenfield, where legal restrictions on development are less severe. When people learned it was Green Belt, this became an emotive issue and the basis of the campaign against development.

Currently football can be played by youngsters on the grass pitch which is maintained by the council. The other main users are dog walkers, children playing etc. Torrance has some lovely areas of countryside to explore and allows for a huge and varied amount of wildlife to thrive. This land owned by the community has a moderate biodiversity as evidenced by recent surveys for bats and trees. The argument therefore is whether the loss of some open space with this ecological status outweighs a limited development for the benefit of the community. Some in the community see a greater community benefit by not building on it, while others are supportive of building. The Torrance Community Initiative is committed to the preservation of green belt, but believes the community would be better served from using some of the land for a custom-built centre, funded by building a limited number of houses. While the council initially were supported the aims of TCI in the believe that the village wanted a new centre, it withdrew that support following a campaign against TCI's proposals.

The draft of the new Local Plan has removed any reference to a review of leisure facilities and states that people in Torrance do not want a new community centre. Since then the council has proposed the closure or community take-over of the larger of the two halls. Neither community hall is listed and both suffer from neglect and lack of resources over many decades. East Dunbartonshire Council said that they will not build a new centre nor upgrade the existing ones. However, a council official agreed that anything was possible and that potentially they could be upgraded. The local hall has, in fact, been purchased from East Dunbartonshire Council by the community and is now run by The Caldwell Halls Trust, a group consisting of local residents. The Trust has embarked on a plan to upgrade the hall and so far has installed new windows, decorated the interior of the main hall, installed new vestibule doors and new lighting in the main hall. Meanwhile, the football team has ceased to play matches on the pitch as regulations require running water and electricity to be provided, but a local resident now runs 2 boys teams who play and train on the park.

Outline planning for the new community facilities was rejected by East Dunbartonshire council in May 2008. This included the residential development of 20–40 houses to fund for the community facilities on a 9.8-acre (40,000 m²) site held in trust for the community by the Torrance Community Initiative. Reasons for rejection were that the land is designated greenbelt and the council had not yet done a long overdue review of current facilities as identified in the Local Plan.

Crime

East Dunbartonshire has significantly lower recorded crime rates (40-50% lower for acquisitive and violent crime) than the average in Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Administration

Torrance is part of Ward 5 (known as Bishopbriggs North and Torrance) within East Dunbartonshire Council and is represented by three local councillors:

The MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden is Fiona McLeod of the Scottish National Party, who was elected on 5 May 2011.

Notable residents