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Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning 2003

Application form

This application form can either be completed by hand or electronically (pdf version) on the Planning homepage at www.scotland.gov.uk/planning . Please complete all four questions. The deadline is 12 September 2003. An acknowledgement letter will be sent to the person who has completed this form.

Please provide a name and contact details of the organisation responsible for this work. If partners were involved, identify the lead organisation, and then list the other partners/bodies who had a key role.

Name of key partners (if appropriate)

Please complete the form by providing a brief summary (in no more than the space provided) of the piece of work you have entered. You must also conclude, with a key reason, as to why you think this work merits an Award.

Please tick the key criteria which relate to this entry:

You must describe in your written submission (below) how the criteria which you have ticked relates to your project.

Description of project

The project is a report setting out an Environmental Vision for the Dumbarton Road Corridor Social Inclusion Partnership (SIP) area, covering the communities of Yoker, Scotstoun and Whiteinch. The idea of an Environmental Vision stemmed from a seminar and workshop held in September 2001 involving local councillors, council and agency staff, community and residential representatives and training providers. The report makes the case for a range of policies, proposals and management initiatives which could bring about substantial change in the quality of life within the SIP area. In doing so, it supports many of the City-wide initiatives and strategies aimed at overcoming deprivation, unemployment and low educational attainment. The study was commissioned in February 2002 by the Dumbarton Road Corridor Social Inclusion Partnership - Environment and Image Group. The consultant team was Willie Miller Urban Design + Planning and Drew Mackie Associates. The brief for the study asked for the preparation of an Environmental Vision for the communities of Yoker Scotstoun and Whiteinch. The outputs were to be:

A realistic vision of the urban landscape II A hierarchy of proposals from the short medium and long term II Possible delivery and management structures to ensure long term sustainability.

In addition to this, the essential elements of the Vision were to:

Strengthen local communities II Create places and strengthen local characteristics II Harness site assets //Integrate with surroundings II Build in safety II Be economically viable II Meet aspirations.

Significantly, the brief also stressed the need to take a holistic approach to the study, building in many different subject areas and concerns including sustainability, waste recycling, community safety, health, transport and biodiversity. In other words, this was not to be an exercise in simple environmental improvement - a grass-and trees- approach.

Our response was to consider in the broadest terms not only how the environment of the area looked but also how it worked and how it was used, for example as:

A place in which to live II An economic resource II A transport corridor II A sports and leisure resource II A focu for social, cultural and other positive activities II A generator of employment II An educational resource II A play resource.

Also, we acknowledged that for many of the subject areas built into the brief, policy and proposals were ready in place and it would have been fruitless for us to reinvent these. However we did seek to establish how existing policies and proposals could contribute more effectively to a better environment and how they might respond to community opinion.

Timescale (over which the project has developed)

The study was commissioned in February 2002. The original timescale was four months, but this had 0 be extended due to the complexity of the community consultation exercise and the need to be as rigorous as possible with this element of the study.

Four workshops were held in May, followed by a newsletter distributed to 8000 households in August, followed by a further three workshops at the end of August. Many meetings were held over the duration of the study with local communities and specific groups unwilling or unable to attend community workshops, in addition to one-to-one consultations with key stakeholders, landowners and developers.

The final draft was submitted in December 2002.

Context (the problem which had to be addressed)

Yoker, Scotstoun and Whiteinch are in some ways Glasgow.s forgotten riverside area, rarely mentioned in reports and studies of the regeneration of the Clyde Corridor. While the SIP area itself has been studied in great detail in recent years, the wider strategic picture has tended to concentrate on areas upstream towards the City Centre, across the river around Braehead or downstream at Clydebank. There is an understandable assumption or desire that shipbuilding and other industries can and should remain along this stretch of the Clyde and that nothing else can happen on, or is important to, the riverside.

The perception of Dumbarton Road as a transport corridor belies the fact that it is also a series of community focal points which play a strong role in the life of the area Our proposals aim to support and improve these, as well as providing a more consistent pattern of development and visual coherence along this important thoroughfare. In the wider SIP area, the improvement of other focal points and community facilities is also a theme of our work.

The SIP area represents a substantial and complex piece of the City of Glasgow. From our extensive consultations with the local communities, a wide range of views were expressed on how the area could be improved. These ranged from large development proposals to small landscaping work, from better health care to more effective policing and from more efficient public transport to lighting and parking issues.

However the principal theme of these responses was the desire for an improvement in the quality of services provided throughout the area and better care and maintenance of the environment. This reflects our own view that much of the study area is environmentally sound, but requires a major uplift in standards of care and maintenance. If this does not take place, future investment in the environment is likely to be a waste of resources - it is all too easy to imagine a scenario in which millions of pounds are spent improving the area but five years on, there is little to show for it.

It was stressed that community involvement was the key to the delivery of the vision and that any consultation should include groups of people who are not always heard - such as young people, the elderly, the unemployed, disabled or immigrant sections of the community.

Action taken

As per first two sections.

Results achieved

In March 2003 an Environmental Officer was appointed with the objective of establishing an Environmental Trust for Yoker, Scotstoun and White inch in order to manage and implement initiatives which flow from the Environmental Vision.

The Environmental Vision has provided a focus and a starting point, the strength of which lies in the breadth and depth of support given by both public bodies and communities across the study area.

Conclusion - Why does this piece of work merit an Award?

The Environmental Vision for Yoker, Scotstoun and Whiteinch is more than a plan for a more visually attractive environment. It is an aspiration to create a vision of a better environment for the Dumbarton Road Corridor, not just in physical terms but to embrace the widest and most inclusive definition of the term 'environment'.

The Environmental Vision has provided a focus and a starting point, the strength of which lies in the breadth and depth of support given by both public bodies and communities across the study area.

Date

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