THE bleached holiday photographs jammed behind the electricity sockets have survived the clearance, a last clue that hope once lived in these shells 20 storeys above Glasgow.

Next door, the rusting remains of an addict's toolkit lie as a stark reminder of what these homes became.

Almost 35 years since the first inhabitants swapped the dampness and dereliction of Gorbals for the modernist dream of Stirlingfauld Place, these tower blocks, now resembling something from mid-1990s Sarajevo or Grozny, are just weeks from coming down.

Between May and the end of 2008, some of Scotland's most notorious tower blocks will be demolished at a rate of one a month. As well as the two in Gorbals, two in Sighthill, one in Royston and two in Shawbridge will be down before the year is out.

Five years this Friday the council's housing stock transferred to Glasgow Housing Association. And these demolitions, along with others carried out in previous years in Castlemilk, Toryglen and Dalmarnock, are physical signs of the promised housing revolution.

Looking back on half-a-decade, GHA can also point to the £580m spent improving the homes of tenants to make them warmer, safer and drier, and the £420m set aside for the next three years.

Almost 20,000 homes have been overclad, re-wired and had fitted new bathrooms and kitchens. Some 35,000 new heating systems and 45,000 new secure doors have been installed.

Work began last month - admittedly some considerable way behind schedule - on more of GHA's new-build programme, with the construction commencing in the Balornock area on 240 of a promised 3000 homes.

Ironic, then, with a corner seemingly turned, that GHA's forseeable future will be dominated by something from its inception and relationship with former landlord, Glasgow City Council.

With the European Commission set to unveil the result of its three-year investigation into whether procurement rules were breached when the landlord was created by Scottish ministers in 2003, and with the possibility of a fine landing on the doorstep of one Gordon Brown, many believe GHA is trying to distance itself from its founders by drawing a line between it and the council.

The upshot could well be the repairs and maintenance contract going to other firms instead of the council's arm's-length operation, City Building.

The fallout would be huge: senior council sources are warning GHA that co-operation in regenerating run-down areas would be threatened by a breakdown in relations. GHA insists it is simply abiding by the rules and trying to get the best deal for its tenants.

Elsewhere, agitators continue to search for reasons for the landlord to be investigated by anyone from the police to the housing regulator, while GHA has just submitted its response to a sometimes scathing report from Communities Scotland.

The promised break-up of the landlord into dozens of smaller groups has yet to happen, and the "small is beautiful" brigade of local housing organisations (LHOs) continue to accuse GHA of empire-building and deliberately dragging the process out to give it a purpose and senior staff a reason to collect six-figure salaries.

Although it gave the go-ahead for 16 LHOs to proceed with the "second stage transfer" last October, the lack of a definite time frame has left even many involved in the process believing they are no further down the line to going it alone than this time last year.

Against this backdrop is the continuing uncertainty over the change in administration at Holyrood.

The Scottish Government has yet to spell out a detailed strategy on the direction it wants housing in Glasgow to go, with the arrival of SNP delegations to GHA's Granite House HQ sparking an abundance of conspiracy theories.

But perhaps most significant is the new-build programme, the grant for which expires in 2009. So far, just 170 houses have been completed, with another 280 under construction and 400 in the pipeline.

Even the most optimistic cannot see how, with a budget set five years ago, a further 2000-plus will be built and thousands more demolished by the end of next year.

It is little surprise in the current climate that both GHA and Glasgow City Council in part blame each other for the sluggish pace of construction.

This Wednesday around 250 of the tenants who have helped take GHA on its journey over the past five years will gather in Glasgow City Chambers to mark the birthday with a party - people such as Anne O'Brien, who fits in with the GHA mantra of "warm, dry and secure" tenants.

The widow has lived in her high-rise on Great Western Road for more than 40 years, and in the past four has witnessed dramatic changes. She said: "The fact that hardly anyone turns up at tenants' meetings in our block now I suppose shows we've got satisfied customers.

"The block had just fallen into ruin but within a short time it had been reclad, we got new kitchens and bathrooms and even now the lighting in the hall is being upgraded. In the days when the council owned it you could never imagine that happening."

Sandra Forsythe is GHA's tenant chair. While she confesses that the barrage of criticisms against the landlord can drag those involved down, she believes that the anniversary marks a time to take stock and be proud.

She said: "For many of us this has been nine years, the work towards transfer beginning in 1999. And I would do this all again.

"We do this for the right reasons - to make the lives of our fellow tenants better. And when I look back at the promises made in 2003, so many have been delivered and others are in the pipeline.

"We've begun our new-builds, SST is going to happen and in so many ways this is a watershed year for us. But it's not just bricks and mortar. We need to get communities right and to learn from the mistakes of the past."

But for others it should be bricks and mortar, with insistence that the GHA should "get the knitting right" first. One political source said: "GHA really needs to get to grips with what it's about, and the longer that takes the more chance there is that communities destabilise. It's promised 3000 new homes and has only done a few hundred.

"People have been waiting in areas they know well for change to come and it hasn't. The longer the bricks and mortar don't go up the more the chance that communities awaiting transformation flounder."

As the housing landscape continues to evolve, GHA sees itself as a medium to long-term entity. It is now working on 30-year business plans and has publicly stated the break-up may not happen as previously envisaged.

Given the devastation to Glasgow's communities in recent decades, and the appalling condition of much of the city's social housing, there are limits to what can be achieved in five years.

But, if the previous five are anything to go by, there will be no shortage of observers poring over GHA's every decision to make sure the bright new dawn is delivered in the next five.