West Kilbride Environmental Group's main aim is to restore civic pride in the town, by enhancing the environment through floral displays, tree planting, creation of woodland meadows, installing natural sculptures, upgrading buildings and creating community gardens. The project has also succeeded in increasing environmental awareness of local residents and other local groups.
Overview
PROJECT SUMMARY
West Kilbride Environmental Group's main aim is to restore civic pride in the town, by enhancing the environment through floral displays, tree planting, creation of woodland meadows, installing natural sculptures, upgrading buildings and creating community gardens. The project has also succeeded in increasing environmental awareness of local residents and other local groups.
The base of the project is The Green Centre, an educational and recycling facility. The Green Centre has as its core concept, the creation of alternative energies, such as harnessing wind and water power, but also had adopted the principles of vermiculture to recycle plant materials and household waste, grow plants for floral displays in the town. The centre also contains a rock garden and observation beehives.
West Kilbride Environmental Group has won awards from Scotland in Bloom for this project.
West Kilbride Environmental Group's aims and objectives are part of the wider strategy of West Kilbride Community Initiative, which is to revitalise the commercial sector of the town, by attracting small businesses and developments round the theme of high quality arts and crafts, and thus re-creating West Kilbride as Scotland's Craft and Design Town.
KEY PARTNERS
The project is driven by local people, but the key people from outside the group were Bobby Kirk (Grounds Maintenance, North Ayrshire Council) and Margaret Starling (Entrust Projects Inspector).
Other helpful support received was:
A high media profile was achieved by the Beechgrove Garden visit (Beechgrove Garden installed 250 trees to a community garden during Treefest, interviewed local school children, and will be returning to review the site in 2004)
Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire helped with funding to improve buildings in the town centre
North Ayrshire Council has given assistance with land issues, materials and access issues. There has been energetic support from the local elected member, but this is a mixed relationship in terms of planning issues and additional bureaucracy.
The initial agency which the group worked with was Entrust: their projects inspector gave advice on funding and on environmental issues
Professor Colin McFarlane of the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at Strathclyde University has committed a postgraduate research student to survey the area with a view to developing alternative energy systems, such as water turbines. Funding for this project was received from the SCVOs Direct Grants fund.
The Community Fund (lottery) granted funding for a Marsh Garden round the Kilbride Burn.
The local Freemasons have created community gardens and undertaken to maintain them.
The Rotary are involved with a current project.
FUNDERS
Funding has been attracted from a variety of sources:
The Landfill Tax
£22,000 for the Green Centre (capital)
£7,000 for the planters round the railway station (capital)
£6,000 sculpting costs for the elm tree (capital)
Scottish Power Green Energy Trust
£10,000 to develop alternative energy projects
Aggregates Levy
£10,000 to develop a mini power station in the Green Centre
Esme Fairbairn Trust
£7,000 to lay water into the quarry, and build a cabin for equipment
Community Fund
£4,700 to create a marsh garden
North Ayrshire Council
£17,000 to create community gardens
£5,000 from the Community Safety Award, to purchase safety equipment, such as a Henchman ladder and access platform with accessories, safety chains for the hanging baskets, which are surprisingly heavy staging for the poly tunnel.
BBC Beechgrove Garden
£2,500 to plant trees in community garden during Treefest
SCVO's Direct Grants
£8,000 to finance post graduate student's research
The project has also raised over £500 through asking the general public to fill up Smarties sweet tubes with 20 pence pieces, and handing them into the project when filled.
THEMATIC CRITERIA
North Ayrshire, Parks/ Gardens, Recycling, Waste Reduction, Education
Plan
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
West Kilbride Community Initiative is the umbrella organisation for community groups and interested individuals in West Kilbride, an Ayrshire town with a population of 5,000 people.
In 1999, the members of West Kilbride Community Initiative decided to do something to turn around the fate of the town centre, which had undergone a considerable downturn, with empty shop fronts, boarded up windows, litter, dog fouling, etc.
Most of this decline could be explained away by changing social and economic trends, such as the rise in large supermarkets and out of town shopping. In addition, the majority of the working age inhabitants are employed away from the town and its environs (the town has no local industry), and do not have time during the day to shop in the local high street.
After some visits to other areas (the 'book town' of Wigtown for example) West Kilbride Community Initiative decided that the town's survival lay in adopting some type of theme, and eventually settled on the concept of West Kilbride becoming a centre for quality arts and crafts, utilising the empty shops as artists studios and gallery space.
However, in order to achieve this aim, one of the main challenges was to upgrade the physical environment of the town, in order to attract artists and customers.
In 1999, West Kilbride Environmental Group was formed by four members of the West Kilbride Community Initiative, (West Kilbride Environmental Group is now a sub group of West Kilbride Community Initiative).
In order to assist the West Kilbride Environmental Group in achieving their goals of rejuvenating the physical environment of the town, the group set itself a challenging first goal - that was to win a prize in the Scotland in Bloom competition.
OUTPUTS
The aesthetic benefits to the town are fairly dramatic, and have no negative impacts. A sense of community optimism has been restored, by the immediate impacts which the project have achieved, and by the high profile generated by The Beechgrove Garden.
West Kilbride Environmental Group also gives talks to local groups, and has been the subject of study visits by other councils and agencies.
Other unexpected outputs include:
Reduction in vandalism
The amount collected from the Smarties tubes
Input of ideas, and level of engagement of the initial sceptics.
FUTURE STEPS
Three new gardens are planned for the town, two of which are upgrades of existing sites, and one created from new.
There are plans to develop water turbines from the flow of the Kilbride Burn, to light up the Kirktonhall Glen.
Most of the plants n the floral displays have to be replaced annually, however, some local groups have undertaken to do this. Local people are now keeping an eye on the displays, and participating in watering and maintenance.
The worm boxes are being used to recycle the spent plants to create compost for the following years planting.
The project, as part of its renewable energy strategy, is looking at other methods of producing energy from waste:
- Usable heat from decaying vegetable matter
- Wind generator, using a photo voltaic cell, can produce 1.2 kWh of power, enough to re-charge batteries
- Water power, using a mini pump storage system, pump water into reservoir, and then generate power to the mini pump, by flow of water downstream from the reservoir
Progress
Community consultation: due to the relatively small population of West Kilbride, much of the community consultation was carried out in an informal basis, on the street, in the tea room, etc. In addition, the West Kilbride Environmental Group posted all its plans in the local community resource centre in the Main Street, for the community to read and comment upon, and published articles in the community newsletter, 'The Village Voice'.
Registering with Entrust: West Kilbride Community Initiative registered with Entrust, and North Ayrshire Council, which enabled them to apply for Landfill Tax. Here they were greatly assisted by the enthusiasm and energy of the local (independent) councillor for the area, Elizabeth McLardy.
Set up of the Green Centre. Having succeeded in achieving £22,000 from the Landfill Tax to set up a base for the project, the group then leased the former Corse Hill Quarry, disused since approximately the first half of the 19th Century free of charge from a local farmer, and The Green Centre was established.
The Green Centre contains:
- A greenhouse
- poly tunnel,
- composting yard,
- 11 worm boxes,
- observation bee hives
- tadpole ponds
- equipment cabin
- a mini power station (in its early stages)
The Green Centre is used for the following activities:
- growing plants and shrubs for the town planting campaign
- recycling spent bulbs and plants
- creation of high quality compost for town planting campaign
- educational tours for local school children, to explain waste recycling and to observe the bees
- initial experiments in reusable energy from decomposing waste, wind and water power.
Having set up this centre, the project was then able to meet the recycling criteria for its entry into the Scotland in Bloom competition, and began the campaign of planting bulbs, shrubs and flowers round the town.
West Kilbride Environmental Group then made a number of small funding applications to various bodies, in order to finance a series of environmental projects. (see Review section)
CURRENT ISSUES/ EVENTS
Review
ACHIEVEMENTS
The group has completed the following projects:
- Developed a Marsh Garden round the Kilbride Burn
- Worked with The Beechgrove Garden to set up a community gardens and plant 250 small trees. This project also involved local schools.
- Kirktonhall Glen, again, with local school children assisting, the group planted 20,000 daffodils (half of these were supplied by North Ayrshire Council)
- In 2002, installed over 300 floral displays in the town centre
- Won a prize from Scotland in Bloom! In 2002, the group were awarded the Jim Murdie Trophy for sustainability
- Installed planters round the railway station, and Main Street
- Installed a series of hanging baskets in the town centre
- Cut down a seriously diseased elm tree, and then employed a sculptor to make a series wildlife sculptures from the wood, which have been installed round the town, and can be viewed on the village website.
- Held Open Days at the Green Centre
- Produced a car windscreen 'sticker' in self-cling vinyl, with the group's logo and the slogan 'take a pride in West Kilbride'. 2,500 have been circulated.
- Improved buildings on the Main Street, painting over graffiti, installing security grilles on shop windows
The whole community has benefited from these activities: people no longer avoid the Main Street when walking through the town, and there is now an increased sense of optimism about the future of West Kilbride.
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