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Crossgates Sustainable Communities Project |
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Wednesday, 15 October 2003 |
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The Sustainable Communities Programme aimed to encourage people to take part in activities within the Crossgate community.
Overview
PROJECT SUMMARY
The Sustainable Communities Programme was run by Forward Scotland in partnership with a number of councils, aiming to encourage people to take part in activities within their community, which will improve quality of life, build a greater sense of local community and support sustainable lifestyles; and to provide skills, confidence and opportunities enabling people to participate more effectively in local decision making, contribution to the longer term sustainability of communities.
Crossgates, a village of 12,000 households, became one of Fifes first Sustainable communities.
KEY PARTNERS
The three sides to this partnership project were Fife Council, local community organisations and Forward Scotland.
FUNDERS
The Community Development Workers salary was funded by the Lottery, Going For Green.
THEMATIC CRITERIA
Fife / Perthshire/ Tayside; Sustainable Communities; Facilitating organisation
Plan
OUTPUTS
Greater community involvement and better communication was developed.
FUTURE STEPS
The Bowling Club did not succeed in their funding application but another application is being made.
Progress
The first 18 months of this programme involved strategic discussions between Forward Scotland and the local council. One of the purposes of this was to get a partnership agreement between the community organisations and the Council set up. For the final six months a Community Development Worker supported the development of community capacity. This took place between September 2000 and September 2002.
Other community meetings were held, and a survey concerning environmental and some social issues was also completed. A public meeting was called to ask people if they had an interest in taking the issues from the survey forward.
There was a huge response to the survey. An "other issues" section had a huge response as well but there was not time to do anything with this information. (The Community Council were concerned about the results of the survey as they felt that they had already done some of the things that people were asking for.)
The Community Development Worker met regularly with the Community Council and supported this as the core community organisation. The Community Council felt that communication was an issue and decided that a community newsletter was needed. There was lack of communication between different community groups. These included a local bowling club, a community woodland association and the parish church was also involved. A separate editorial group was set up which included members of the community and representatives of the above groups. A number of meetings were held around the organisation of the newsletter. These were chaired by the Community Development Worker. The Council provided the resources and carried out the printing of the newsletter. Initial discussions took place around the development of a constitution.
Another specific project included Crossgates Primary School following a gardening programme to encourage young children to grow their own carrots and coriander for soup ingredients.
The Bowling Group, which had a number of young people involved in it was supported to make an Awards for All application for equipment. This was not successful but they have gone on to make a subsequent application.
There was also an agreed exit strategy with all of the sustainable communities projects when the Community Development Worker left. Funding advice was also given.
Review
ACHIEVEMENTS
The first quarterly newsletter was produced by the time the Community Development Worker left.
A funding application was made by the bowling club to Awards for All.
The Community Council negotiated the introduction of dog waste bins.
PROCESS
The local CVS was briefed to continue support to the newsletter group.
A second newsletter is currently being produced.
LESSONS
Community development takes time. A two year timescale is a minimum for community development projects to start producing effective results. 10 years is more realistic in producing sustainable results.
Council support for and commitment to community development is important if long term work is to proceed and the community is to be empowered to take more control of it's own destiny.
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Communities 