I have for the past nine years had the great privilege of representing around 56,000 or so residents in Glasgow Kelvin.

This Scottish Parliament constituency stretches from Paddy's Market in the old centre of Glasgow, encompassing the cosmopolitan Merchant City and the bohemian West End, to Scotstoun Shipyard and the high flats at Kingsway and including many distinct and famous Glasgow communities such as Trongate, Merchant City, Townhead, Cowcaddens, Garnethill, Anderston, Yorkhill, Hillhead, Hyndland, Partick, Broomhill, Thornwood, Whiteinch and Scotstoun. 

Glasgow Kelvin has within its boundary four universities, four further education colleges, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, the famous Glasgow School of Art, six secondary schools, three major hospital sites including the Beatson Oncology Centre and the world famous Queen Mother's Maternity and Yorkhill’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children, as well as the headquarters of Scotland’s biggest police force and a wide variety of theatres, museums, galleries, concert halls, and many other places of interest.  Perhaps most notable is the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, nearby to my own Constituency Office in Argyle Street, the Galleries as Kelvingrove is known to generations of Glaswegians recently underwent major refurbishment and is now once again Scotland’s most visited free attraction.

It is a diverse and challenging constituency which in its previous guise as Glasgow Hillhead was known as the most educated constituency in Britain, and was one of the last Tory held seats in Glasgow before being represented by Roy Jenkins and subsequently George Galloway.  The UK Parliamentary constituency was abolished in advance of the 2005 General Election and today Glasgow Kelvin is almost equally split between the UK constituencies of Mohammad Sarwar MP, (Glasgow Central), Ann McKechn MP, (Glasgow North), and John Robertson MP, (Glasgow North West). 

The Clyde Auditorium at Finnieston on the north bank of the River Clyde

"The Clyde Auditorium better known as the Armadillo is near the middle of the Glasgow Kelvin constituency."

In recent years the River Clyde waterfront, along the north-side of which the constituency stretches, has become a symbol of Glasgow’s rebirth and urban renewal, with many new buildings sprouting up in both the city centre, at Finnieston near the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre and the new Clyde Arc, better known in Glasgow as the Squinty Bridge and along to the massive Glasgow Harbour development in the west.   Known as Glasgow’s other river, the Kelvin flows from the north, past some of the cities most well known and best loved landmarks such as Glasgow University’s imposing Gilbert Scott building and flows into the Clyde between Yorkhill and Partick, at the site of the new Zahar Hadid designed Riverside Museum of Transport which will replace the much loved facility at the Kelvin Hall International Sports Arena. 

Glasgow Kelvin has its own Botanic Garden in the West End, the biggest public lending library in Europe, The Mitchell, beside the M8 motorway and has more pubs, clubs and shops than other constituency in Scotland.