Meeting of the Parliament 14 May 2019
I will highlight excellent community-led work that is taking place in my constituency. It has been a privilege to support such efforts in the communities that I represent. As I have done before in the chamber, I praise the work of the Royston strategy group. I was pleased to hold a members’ business debate on the regeneration of Royston way back on 24 June 2014—that was some time ago. In that debate, members praised the community-led nature of the expected regeneration that the strategy group championed, which was to be driven through local housing associations and the Rosemount Development Trust. A major community consultation followed, and a partnership with Kevin Murray Associates led to a vision document for the community.
Many community asks still need to be progressed and delivered, but there have been successes, which it is important to put on the record in the context of the debate. Roystonhill will have a new community hub, for which £1 million will come from the Big Lottery Fund and £575,000 will come from the Scottish Government’s regeneration capital grant fund. The community will take back control of the derelict land that is known as the triangle site, for which Copperworks Housing Association has got £419,000 from the Scottish land fund.
Those key asks followed a place-based community-led consultation, and they have been delivered. It is significant that the local authority had no regeneration plans for Royston, so the community got on and designed its own plans, and now it is delivering. Surely that is a place-based community-led success, which shows what can be achieved.
If we offer a voice and hope, we must offer the prospect of delivery. We should not give false hope, which is why I wanted to give a concrete example of how success can be achieved.
In partnership with Springburn community council, we established the Springburn regeneration forum in March 2017. I pay tribute to the community council and Helen Carroll in particular for their sheer energy to improve the area. Springburn did not have a regeneration plan from the local authority; there were sizeable regeneration plans for surrounding places, such as Red Road and Cowlairs, but no attempts were being made to regenerate the town centre.
When we fast forward to today, the regeneration forum has secured about £40,000 to open a new community hub in Springburn shopping centre, run a variety of projects and worked with Kevin Murray Associates to run two days of charrettes as part of a massive community consultation to develop Springburn’s community-led vision. I thank the Scottish Government for putting more than £20,000 into the pot of cash to make that happen; I also thank NG Homes for putting in £10,000, Glasgow City Council for putting in £10,000 and several others for giving money. I thank the shopping centre, Springburn Winter Gardens Trust and others that gave support in kind.
On 28 May, we will feed back the findings of the charrettes to the wider community. We will create expectations when our vision is fleshed out, and that challenges all of us—including the local authority, the Scottish Government and other funding partners—to find a way of delivering the vision. I am sure that we can do that. The £50 million town centre regeneration fund might be crucial in attracting much investment to Springburn.
The place principle is vital if we are to deliver a strategic community-led view of what our town centres and communities should look like. In my constituency, I have seen that happen in Royston, and I see it emerging in Springburn. As MSPs and local delivery agents, we all have a key role not in leading regeneration but in building capacity in our communities to let them lead the regeneration. We must deliver for them.
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