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Listen
Application form
Please make sure you have read all the notes carefully before you start to fill in the application form. This application form can either be completed by hand or electronically - it is available on the Planning homepage at www.scotland.gov.uk/planning. Please complete all five sections. The deadline for submitting applications is 29 August 2007. An acknowledgement letter will be sent to the person who has completed this form.
1 Please provide a name and contact details of the lead organisation responsible for this work.
Name | Pauline Gallacher |
Job title | Project Co-ordinator (Vol) |
Organisation | Neilston Development Trust |
Address | 24 Main Street, Neilston G78 3EB |
Telephone | 0141 881 1337 (Home)
0141 561 1201 (Work) |
Fax | |
Email | pauline.gallacher@btinternet.com |
2 If this is a joint application, please list the other partners who had a key role. You should also inform your partners that you are nominating the project for an award.
1 East Renfrewshire Council | 2 |
3 | 4 |
5 | 6 |
3 Tick one nomination category
Title of entry | Neilston: Space to Live |
Please complete the form on the following pages by providing a brief summary 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. Only the two A4 pages supplied here can be used and your text must fit within the boxes. The font size should be no less than 12pt.
The judging criteria are set out below. Please tick only the key criteria relevant to your entry:
You must describe, in your written submission, how the criteria which you have ticked relate to your project.
Description of project
Space To Live ( STL) is a project of Neilston Development Trust ( NDT). It has attempted to insert the agenda of place making into the heart of a grassroots regeneration movement. We have done this in two ways: first, by conducting exemplary local engagement with design issues, and secondly by stimulating local identification with place by cultural work (in the broadest sense). To this bi-fold approach has been added another dimension; the acquisition, as community asset, of a key building in the centre, thus affording the physical and institutional context for Geddes life/work/place continuum to be explored and realised. |
Describe the background to the project
Neilston (pop 5000 approx) is surrounded by agricultural land and was a mill town for 200 years (the last mill closed in the 1980s). It has several small but severe pockets of deprivation. Its townscape has suffered badly over time: piecemeal development, road widening, spatial fragmentation, decreasing density, suburban sprawl and the gradual deterioration of The village's character make it typical of many such 'ordinary' places, not 'bad' enough for regeneration priority, yet not 'good' enough to merit conservation regeneration. Despite a lively community life, no-one (including the formal planning process) was pressing for a strategic approach to mending the townscape. A local resident proposed that a radical new initiative was needed, and STL was born. |
What are the aims and objectives of the project?
Space to Live's original constitution was clear about its aims: To develop and implement a community-based public space strategy, which - is of exemplary design quality
- it locally directed and developed
- expressed the value of sustainable development, and thus
- reflects and enriches the common life of Neilston
Its objectives were to devise a programme that would reflect residents' lives and interests (via the cultural programme that has become Neilston Live) and a parallel programme of research, workshops and commumication that would develop local understanding and progress towards a strategy capable of adoption by the local authority, East Renfrewshire Council ( ERC). This, we knew, would be the ultimate test: the project's 'fit' with the planning system, irrespective of its internal persuasiveness. |
Over what timescale has the project been developed?
January 2004 - present. Selected milestones: Jan 04 - inaugural public meetings, communicated by door to door publicity Mar 04 - STL constituted. Co Ltd by guarantee Nov 04 ( SDT) followed in Mar 06 May05 - residents survey, in collaboration with Neilston Business Forum Jun 05 - 'Ideas Shop' scoping workshop to begin exploration of special issues Oct 05 - Designer talks by leading practitioners in preparation for Big Do Nov 05 - Big Do weekend workshop led by Gebal Architects, Copenhagen Summer 06 - present: A + DS enabled report in preparation 04-07 - Neilston line process - village walks, 3 annual festivals, planting project Nov 06 - Culmination of community Right to Buy process: NDT acquires former bank building for sustainable development of the community. This has established NDT as a credible institution to pursue its cultural spatial and social economy objectives. |
Explain the process and action taken
The process sketched above is unusual in its own terms, having been completely community driven, however it is more significant, in that it: places strategic spatial and three-dimensional design as the lead idea, sitting at the core of local planning and other social and economic moves; a fundamental intention, which has little to do with the amelioration of individual spaces and everything to do with holistic, place-specific and sustainable regeneration in having emerged from grass-roots action, places communities themselves in the best position to grow in the process of interrogating and celebrating place, to lead in the process of regeneration, and to develop socially, economically and culturally as a result.
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Explain the role of the key partners
Our key partnership is with ERC. To date this has been generally supportive, but with the A+ DS collaboration, and the emerging range of possibilities under discussion (please contact Mr A Catill, Director of Environment 0141 577 3036), this relationship now comes into the foreground; achieving council "buy-in" was crucial to the project's aspirations and we could have no certainty about this at the outset. The commissioning of the masterplan, the meaningful integration of this into the planning and regeneration (whether as design statement, supplementary planning guidance or action plan) and the joint delivery mechanisms agreed, will cement a relationship which, we are delighted to say, has grown in mutual confidence, to the point where we are hopeful of breaking new ground in council/grassroots partnership. |
What results were achieved?
The process sketched above has created local capacity to act as an active, informed and discriminating client for a design-led, holistic masterplanning exercise, in a creative partnership with its local council, and using the provisions of the Planning Act, together with Community Planning and cultural initiatives and to achieve a new framework for the regeneration of small settlements Tangible outcomes of this process include - active involvement in the work of the Neilston Village Regeneration Group (council led)
- mobilisation of local interest (eg recruitment of volunteer team for 'bank')
- recognition of project by A+DS - joint work with ERC on report
- current negotiation with ERC on innovative future collaboration (Aug 07)
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In summary, why does this piece of work merit an Award?
It offers an innovative approach to the role of community participation as a positive contributor to the activity of place making. This is of value, not only in Neilston, but in the many similar small towns throughout the country, too long overlooked but now attracting the attention of policy-makers. STL has stimulated local understanding of strategic design issues, developed awareness of place and local identity, and created an organisation rebust enough to enter serious and long-term delivery arrangements. It has achieved recognition locally, with its council, nationally (A+DS+ CABE) and internationally. (Gebal Architects, Copenhagen nominated STL for Ralph Erskine award) |
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