Blast memorial plea

Views sought on plan to honour 22 victims

- ANDREW QUINN

SCOTLAND'S worst peacetime explosion could get a new memorial more than 50 years on.

Twenty-two people lost their lives and more than 100 were injured in the Clarkston gas explosion on October 21, 1971.

The explosion followed a build-up of gas in an underground space beneath the Clarkston Toll shops, caused by a gas leak which was later ruled to have been accidental.

There is a small memorial plaque at the location of the disaster, a memorial tree at the entrance to the car park of Clarkston Halls, and a plaque remembering those who lost their lives inside Clarkston Halls.