News

Creative Pathways Barrhead & Neilston was launched on August 9^th 2016. The project to date has engaged 15 young people in a variety of environmental arts activities.

Initial weeks were spent focussing on team building and introduction to local environment and environmental issues such as recycling, wildlife preservation, and biodiversity. The project also connected with other local environmental projects in the immediate area including Barrhead green network, and Youth enterprise Scotland. The team visited the YES environmental programme at Rouken Glen park to see what they were undertaking, and gained a great deal of learning about the plants and flowers the young people were growing and nurturing at the flower garden project.

In week three, the team undertook an intergenerational consultation with residents of Barrhead Sheltered Housing complex, utilising their new skills and learning to help residents design a low maintenance environment in the grounds that could be enjoyed by them and their families. The design was passed on to Barrhead Housing Association for implementation through their corporate services team. Through ongoing liaison with BHA, the team identified a stalled space in Neilston, which was part of a recent community housing development next to the town railway station.

Young people undertook a number of SQA Employability units in week 4, alongside undertaking new design tasks for outdoor features including bug hotels, birdhouses, and composters, as well as garden furniture that could be adapted for consultation with residents at McKulloch Way (Neilston site). The team also designed and distributed a flyer inviting residents to a consultation event.

The team then moved on to undertake the community consultation with residents, inviting them to undertake planned activities which would help engage and inspire them in the process of designing a new landscape for their stalled space. Attendees were invited to contribute to mood boards, and to write down their ideas for the space. Participants were also asked to suggest a name for the space following development.

Following the consultation event, the team drew up plans which were distributed and approved by residents and Barrhead Housing Association, which enabled young people to start undertaking work on the site.

The team then moved on to draw up a full project plan with timescales, equipment needed, indoor and outdoor work, and allocated roles within the team to research, purchase and implement certain tasks. The initial stages of the project has included a number of ‘hard’ landscaping tasks which included creating a new pathway into and around the space. One of the biggest challenges for the team was to undertake the removal of hard surface rubble from beneath the turf, which had been leftover from house construction. The young people in particular applied themselves to this task and had the area cleared in a matter of days.

The team undertook several tasks within a short space of time, taking advantage of late summer / early autumn weather to undertake all outdoor work, ahead of creating more features for the space during colder weather at their indoor base (Auchenback Resource Centre).

Planning ahead, the young people will continue undertaking their accreditation and implement further designs in the McKulloch way space.