Quick memory. 1996 or thereabouts. I’m standing in the old Daily Record building near the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow. Top floor: above the bridge, above the birds, above everything. The moment sticks in my mind because it’s one of the best views in the city – or was – and up on the roof, as high as you can go, is where acrophiliacs like me get our hits. Height is good. It feels good up here.

The building is long gone now of course (along with the Copy Cat pub next door where hacks honed their skills with beer) and its disappearance was part of a trend in which Glasgow lost many of its tallest buildings. The most famous: the old high-rise flats in Govan, put up in hope, torn down in despair. Glasgow’s changed a lot, and in some ways, it’s also got shorter.

But only in some ways. You may have noticed what’s been happening more recently in the city and that a lot of the new development in Glasgow is pretty high: the students flats at Charing Cross, the apartments on the Broomielaw, the Barclays offices on the south side, and many more. Suddenly, developers and architects seem to have rediscovered the sky and are designing tall again.

Is it the right thing to do though? Glasgow City Council has just launched a new public consultation on the subject, which it says will help shape guidance on tall buildings and the way planning applications are handled. The council is doing it, it says, because an increasing number of tall buildings are being planned and built and the question is whether we want more of them, and where they should go, and whether tall is the way to go in the first place.

The council itself acknowledges some people are worried about the trend for tall, and it’s understandable to an extent. I mentioned the........

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