Renfrewshire Council has been asked how it plans to sustain the momentum of community development work in Gallowhill, Paisley, following a series of projects described as encouraging by a local councillor.
Projects and Progress
The local authority, alongside partners such as Active Communities and Engage Renfrewshire, has gathered momentum with initiatives tailored to the needs of Gallowhill, an area with high child poverty rates. Among the projects are a regular lunch club, men's drop-in, litter pick, exercise class, and walking group. Moving forward, sessions aim to bring together engaged residents and pave the way for a formal group that could evolve into a community council.
An update on the programme was included in a report considered by elected members at a leadership board meeting.
Councillor's Concerns
Councillor Jim Paterson, SNP representative for Renfrew South and Gallowhill, said: "It's pretty encouraging seeing the progress being made in Gallowhill in terms of the residents' participation, the men's wellbeing group, the lunch club, the walking group and the Team Up to Clean Up stuff. It's all really encouraging but I suppose in the back of my mind I'm thinking what support is going to be provided in the coming months and years to ensure the momentum is maintained and we realise the ambition of getting either a tenants' association or community council established?"
Council's Response
Laura McIntyre, head of policy and partnerships, responded: "The development worker there was funded through Fairer Renfrewshire funding to start that work and promote those community conversations with a view to developing groups, organisations, potentially a community council in the future, so that these activities could be self-sustaining in the future."
She added: "In terms of the other things that the council is doing at the moment, we are looking to pilot locality workers working across some of our communities and we've taken quite a bit of learning from the work that has already been done in Gallowhill. We're starting to think about how we as services can join up all the information about what's happening in communities and how we can work with community groups and organisations to join that up and to make more of a difference in communities."
Ms McIntyre noted that some communities have more activities than others and there may be gaps that the council and its partners need to address. She described the response to the work in Gallowhill as "fantastic," saying: "There is clearly an appetite from local residents to get involved and develop and inform things that are going to happen in Gallowhill as we move forward."
