A community development project in Gallowhill is beginning to show encouraging results, with growing resident participation and hopes of eventually establishing a community council for the area.
Progress on the initiative was highlighted during a meeting of Renfrewshire Council’s Leadership Board on Wednesday, 17th June, where councillors heard how local people are becoming increasingly involved in activities and community-led projects.
Councillor Jim Paterson welcomed the progress being made and pointed to a number of successful initiatives already taking place in the area.
He said: “Reading the report, it is encouraging to see the progress that has been made in Gallowhill, with the resident participation, the men’s wellbeing group and the lunch club.”
However, he asked how the council planned to maintain momentum and support residents in achieving longer-term ambitions.
Councillor Paterson said: “In the back of my mind, I am thinking about what support will be provided in the coming months and years to ensure that the momentum is maintained and that we realise the ambition of getting either a tenants’ association or a community council established.”
Responding to the concerns, Renfrewshire Council’s Head of Policy and Partnerships, Laura McIntyre, said the response from local residents had been “fantastic”.
She explained that community development work in Gallowhill had been supported through Fairer Renfrewshire funding and delivered in partnership with Active Communities.
Ms McIntyre said: “The response to the initial work in Gallowhill has been fantastic, and there is clearly an appetite from local residents to get involved and to develop and inform things that are going to happen in Gallowhill as we move forward.”
A report presented to councillors highlighted a range of activity already underway in the area.
A weekly community lunch attracts between 25 and 30 people, while a new men’s drop-in group was launched earlier this year in response to concerns about male suicide rates in the community.
Community-led litter picks have also continued to grow, with residents taking part in Renfrewshire’s Team Up to Clean Up campaign, while new walking groups, exercise classes and children’s activities have been introduced.
Council officers said the longer-term aim is to strengthen relationships within the community and support residents in establishing more formal community organisations.
Ms McIntyre told councillors that lessons learned from Gallowhill were already helping to shape thinking about similar work elsewhere in Renfrewshire.
She said: “We have taken quite a bit of learning from the work that has already been done in Gallowhill.
“We are starting to think about how we, as services, can join up all the information about what is happening in communities and how we can work with community groups and organisations to join that up and make more of a difference in communities.”
She added that while funding for the current project was limited, the council was already considering how to support similar approaches over the longer term.
“I make a commitment to Councillor Paterson that, although the funding is for a limited period of time for Active Communities, we are thinking about how we support that type of work across Gallowhill and other communities in Renfrewshire over the longer term,” she said.
The update was provided as part of a wider Fairer Renfrewshire report considered by councillors at the meeting.