I heard about this a few days ago and thought it worthy of some attention.
Firstly, the trial is NOTAM'd so pilots operating in/out of Glasgow should be aware of it.
The trial was not thought up by some manager some where who had nothing better to do. There was a safety survey done by an ATCO on the unit (granted this was done at the request of management) and the result was recommendation of a trial.
It has been run at a time when traffic has been quiet and to be honest I'm not sure how you prove the trial to be a success- when you stop doing something whatever might have happened won't happen.
I have to agree with Standard Noise, it hasn't impacted on my controlling at all. I have adapted what I do, but I'm not less expeditious or more distracted. (I also think 'ring of reds' is a good idea, but thats a debate for another day!)
Harley 7985, you hit the nail on the head for me. We have had issues with conditional clearances at Glasgow, one was the closest thing I've seen to their being a mound of twisted metal on the runway- so when people say, if used correctly they are fine, they should know this particular incident involved a conditional being correctly given and read-back.
The idea behind this is not to make life more difficult (and I don't think it does), it is to take away the possibility, however slim, of that type of incident happening again.
There are lots of things at the moment that we have to put up with that are far from perfect that pilots will know nothing about, and that we should be debating (not on an internet forum right enough!). This 'trial' is well intentioned and done for the best of reasons so why not just feed into it over the next few months (and I don't mean making your mind up you don't like it from the start) when traffic will increse a bit, and we may then see any impact on the operation?