PCP is supervised by the Economic Development Unit of North Lanarkshire Council.
In total PCP has raised approaching £500,000 of revenue and capital funding, outwith the core funding from North Lanarkshire Council. This has come from a very wide range of sources including local agencies, Trusts, Europe, private companies, and specialist environmental agencies.
Plan
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
PCP started after a conversation between local residents, active in the tenants association, and the Community Worker, eleven years ago. They saw the potential to make a park from disused land in the heart of the village. The land had once been a sewage works, but was not registered as such on more recent Council maps. The village had traditionally used an area of nearby farmland as the site for a famous Highland Games event. The decline of the coal industry has had severe consequences on employment and general well-being over the last century. The Games had became a Village Gala, but there has been no Gala in recent years.
Today, PCP states its objectives as:
- To manage and maintain an information base for Plains Country Park . To continue to develop the park in line with local needs and funding opportunities
- To develop appropriate training and employment opportunities related to park development, and the wider needs of local people and the local labour market
- To deliver a high quality, innovative and inclusive programme of environmental education
- To continue to promote Plains, attract visitors and thereby stimulate other
- economic activity in the village . To develop wide and practical partnerships to assist future development Services Providers
PCP delivers a range of services in support of these objectives:
- Development, management and maintenance of the park
- Design and delivery of an extensive programme of environmental education. Special events, normally based on seasonal opportunities, to further promote access and use of the park.
- Provision of an information and advice base to local people and groups. General training activities to local people. Employment opportunities linked to training - for example the project has recently started a trainee as part of the New Deal's Environmental Task Force.
OUTPUTS
Use of the park is increasing, especially due to the ranger Service, which reported a 38% increase in visitor levels in 2002 compared with the previous year. The Park Ranger, Allan McNally, is focussing on developing PCP as an environmental education resource and visitor attraction, not only for the local people of the village, but for the people of North Lanarkshire.
There has been much involvement of school groups comprising hundreds of children from the 18 schools across the area, with many schools using the Ranger Service on several occasions to deliver illustrated talks and activities on a variety of environmental topics linked with the school's 5-14 environmental curriculum guidelines. The length of school visits is also increasing on average.
In addition, contacts have been fostered with the local community through links with after school clubs, youth projects, community service team, single parents clubs and special needs groups. The attendance of members of the public to activities and events rose by 261% (representing 2174 people) from 2001 to 2002.
Events held have included Environmental Games, Wildlife Stone Painting, Countryside Challenges, Nature Detectives , Wild Art , Nature Art Attack , Family Fun Day , Food For Free , Willow Sculpture Workshop , Autumn Antics Fun Day , Bird Feeder Workshop , Tree Planting For National Tree Week , Watercolour Nature Painting Workshop , School's Spring Art Competition/Exhibition , Woodcrafts Day, Plains Historical Walk, Fly Fishing Demonstrations, Sustrans, NLC Pedalling Picnic, with a total attendance of 2174
PCP has also helped to break down sectarian divisions in the area - Plains is traditionally a predominantly catholic village and due to the sectarian history in the area residents were often reluctant to visit other villages and vice versa. However schools and parents from the other villages now come to the Park, thanks to the projects aim of getting the two local schools together - both visiting the Park and for art competitions, etc.
The cycle track is also a big attraction bringing visitors in from outside the area.
FUTURE STEPS
PCP has a number of new opportunities to further develop the site - two options are under consideration for park expansion. There is also the prospect of a more ambitious partnership through the "Stepends" project, related to the decision of the farmer who owns adjacent land to move from farming to woodland development. This has considerable potential.
In order to progress this, and to generally secure the future, PCP is looking to fund a part-time development officer post.
Progress
The park has developed in phases over the period from 1994. New features, space and activities have been added on an incremental basis, as additional land and funding for new developments has been accessed.
From the outset, PCP recognised the developments could have a number of related benefits. Central to these were (a) the opportunity to create a new recreational/leisure facility in the village (b) the potential to create new training and employment opportunities related to park developments for unemployed local people and (c) the potential to improve the local environment. Ensuring access for disabled people - who are disproportionately large in number in Plains - was also a key objective considered in all aspects of park design.
Right at the start of the process, about a dozen meetings with input from a local business and Monklands District Council resulted in an application for £38,000 over three years' for 'urban aid' funding which paid for a programme of work that included soil tests. Significant support from key people in the Central Scotland Countryside Trust was established early on, and has continued to be important throughout the development of PCP.
The Management and Working Committee has retained a fairly constant membership since the beginning - there has been only one change since establishment, due to death - and is considered by the Secretary to represent an excellent mix of skills that has kept the project on track.
The constitution has had to adapt over the years, at key points when initial restrictions written in by the council on the scale of funding allowed, and then to accommodate employees.
Considerable work on the park has been undertaken over the years, and associated training opportunities have been developed. A range of means have been used to complete development work - in kind support, volunteer work, contract work, and project activity linked to vocational training programmes.
The Council gave the ex-sewage land, it took about a year to check out services (oil, gas) and contamination from the sewage works (by conducting a soil survey). Every member of the committee has a skill. The four members have kept to their own job descriptions, relating to their skills, since the beginning.
In the early days, nobody knew the project and things moved slowly, but the committee had a lucky break through a chance meeting with a key Council official with personal links to Plains who took a personal interest in the project and directed the first money towards the project - 'a path to nowhere'.
The next funding was from Central Scotland Countryside Trust, to build stock fencing. Meanwhile, Sustrans negotiated with PCP to build a cycle track through the Park. They did a lot of landscaping work, and finished work eight years ago, in 1995.
Next, the local farmer gave PCP adjacent land after watching the first developments - 'once he saw something getting done', he gave PCP a 25 year long open-ended contract.
'Then the fun started'. The Territorial Army got involved and built a bridge across the burn with four telegraph poles that they donated.
At the same time, the committee submitted a series of small applications to a range of bodies including SNH and the Council (£1000 development money) that 'levered' up the size of the development pot. 'If you went with nothing, you got nothing' - so the key was to go to funders and say there was already some funding in place but there was more needed, and to ask them to match it.
Another key to success was a step by step approach - 'We learned that to charge in was only to trip up and fall'.
Partnerships developed with the funding successes and also with other organisations with expertise to tap - such as Field Fare and Caledonian University in Glasgow. PCP has found such partners are very happy to publicise their work with the Park (on their websites, etc) in return for occasional help.
In 1996 Lanarkshire Development Agency and Wise Group's 'Wisestart' funded a £60,000 play area. Sustrans spent £25000 transforming settling tanks into stone sculptures.
The local farmer's granddaughter died of Leukaemia, and so on the land which he donated an existing nineteenth century curling pond was developed into a wildlife pond in her name with a memorial carving in the centre.
Next, 'Millennium Fund', North Lanarkshire Council's Economic Unit Forum and Wisestart group gave a total of approx £100,000 for what was supposed to be a 26 week programme that ended up taking two years. This was 'a big problem', and PCP had to abort the partnership agreement and project.
More recently, 'core' funding has been granted through the Council's SIP programmes (£26,013 per annum from the North Lanarkshire Regeneration Programme (SIP funded) to "manage and maintain the administrative base", including the costs associated with the sessional administration worker. The project notes that the names of this type of funding programme changes (such as in March 2002 when regeneration SIP funding stopped).
Revenue funding (project) of £126,776 was accessed over three years from the National Lotteries Charities Board (now Community Fund) for the Park Ranger posts, and then a second application to the Community Fund which 'took a lot of time' and upgraded the Ranger project, including the appointment of a second ranger. This application involved a six month development process of creating a comprehensive development plan.
PCP's achievements have been recognised by a series of national awards over the years, reflecting a UK-wide reputation as a high quality, community led environmental project.
One downside of being well-known is now being unable to cope with the number of people who want to come to visit the project, especially as PCP is comparatively small compared to some of the projects that are interested in visiting to learn how they've done what they've done.
Review
ACHIEVEMENTS
Paths (including disabled access); education programme reaching hundreds of visitors with impacts including breaking down of sectarianism in the area; ecological regeneration and planting; hope.
MEASURING ACHIEVEMENTS
The future Development plans are built on evaluations.
Funders require reporting on targets, so this type of information must be kept.
PROCESS (local involvement)
A public meeting attended by 150 local people established significant local interest and elected a steering committee to take forward developments.
PCP has a small but very experienced Management Committee (elected at that pubic meeting). Most of the office bearers have been involved in the project from the start, devote a large amount of voluntary effort to the project, and over the years have undergone a range of training.
In addition, PCP has convened sub-committees that take forward particular projects within the park, enabling greater involvement.
Other public involvement is mostly around attendance at after school clubs, pre-5s, OAPs etc.
Outwith the management committee structure, users of the park represent the greatest portion of participants in the project.
LESSONS
PCP has learned that there are different kinds of 'experts' - some who talk 'rubbish - away on another planet' and experts who can 'relate to what you want' - and to discern between them. It is the latter type of experts that PCP has formed partnership with over the years. Another word for 'experts' is 'professionals'.
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