It was in a desperate bid to find a good vantage point for the demolition of three 20-storey high-rise blocks of flats in Motherwell.
Allan, Coursington and Draffen Towers were demolished in a controlled blowdown just before noon today, Sunday, December 7 2025.
Standing in the small group of residents and other brass-neckers, a strange atmosphere filled the air in the town.
Locals gathering to watch the flats be demolished (Image: Robert Perry)
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Three of Motherwell’s most recognisable high-rise blocks – Allan, Coursington and Draffen Towers were demolished in a controlled blowdown just before noon today, Sunday, December 7 2025. (Image: Robert Perry)
Draffen Tower was completed in 1969, while the Allan and Coursington Towers were finished a year later in 1970.
The weight of that 50-plus years of history lay heavy on the anxious yet excited faces of the locals who had poured onto the streets.
Another group had made the stomp up a nearby hill and lined the brow of it in the distance behind the towers.
I had the pleasure of speaking with the duo tasked with pressing the remote’s button to detonate the controlled explosion.
Joseph Carroll, 9, helped press the button to blow up the tower blocks (Image: Robert Perry)
Local Cathedral Primary schoolboy, Joseph Carroll, 9, and Danny Devine, 91, who served as caretaker of the towers for 25 years while also living in Allan Tower, had the honour.
They were both brimming with excitement after seeing the blocks, each once home to 117 flats, crumble in seconds.
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Former caretaker in the flats, Danny Devine, 91, who retired in 2000 (Image: Robert Perry)
Selected for his 30 years of caretaker services, Danny was emotional as he explained that seeing the blocks fall brought back many memories.
He now lives in Nottinghamshire and said the town had changed drastically since he retired and moved away in 2000.
This is the second high-rise demolition I’ve reported from, having been at the Caledonia Road flats in the Gorbals end in June, and both times I’ve been surrounded by tearful former residents.
There’s a theme where people cheer as the dust settles at these momentous occasions, and it’s hard not to get caught up in the spectacle of it all.
Joseph’s excitement was infectious, too. What schoolboy wouldn’t want to blow stuff up?
The dust clouds form following the demolition as I watched Motherwell flats demolition from a local’s roof (Image: Robert Perry)
But as the clouds of dust and debris dissipate, the hole that is left in the skyline is clear, and when speaking to red-eyed residents, it’s clear there’s a hole in their lives now, too.
Danny described the “fond memories” he has of the community within the flats during his tenure; there was a deep melancholy in the stories he told.
North Lanarkshire Council has a 25-year plan to knock down all 48 high-rise blocks across the local authority area.
It wants to build about 5,000 new homes to replace them.
The towers were once seen as the way forward for housing, and it’s that same pursuit of progress which has led to their end.
While rubble is cleared away and the dust is wiped from surrounding windows, the impact the three towers had on a generation from Motherwell will live on, as will their stories and the memories they made there.
