Blairbeth & Fernhill, South Lanarkshire
About Blairbeth and Fernhill
From March 2022, Corra’s work in Fernhill will begin drawing to a close. This decision follows a period of deep reflection and deliberation over several months. Since 2016 Corra has worked alongside local people and partners in Fernhill to support the delivery of community ideas and aspirations.
Cath, Community Coordinator, started in post in June 2016, and quickly began making connections and building relationships. The West of Scotland residents group invited Corra to host a stall at their community Gala Day at the end of July. Cath took this opportunity to speak to local people about what was important to them and how they felt about their local community.
In late 2017/early 2018 Corra worked with staff from South Lanarkshire Council to help gather the views of Fernhill residents about the upcoming developments to the land at the top of the community, formerly the site for Blairbeth Golf Club. This space would go on to become Fernbrae Meadows. Across 2018 Cath ran a series of pop-up community café events around the central area of Fernhill, these were used as a way of engaging with the community and as a way of finding out how local people felt about their community and what they would like to see within the area.
Then in 2019 Cath worked with the Community Kitty group, made up of local residents, community volunteers, staff from South Lanarkshire Council and local elected members. This group held a series of consultation events, and using the Place Standard Tool, gathered the views and opinions of local people on Fernhill. In each of these research activities issues and ideas were highlighted repeatedly by the local community, these have been listed below along with any work Corra has supported to happen within the community.
Physical space improvements
Local residents would like to see development, increased use of and access to vacant and derelict spaces across the community, including the space adjacent to Fernhill playpark, the land behind Fernhill Community Centre, Fernbrae Meadows and the land at the top of Ryan Way and on Fernbrae Ave .
Fernbrae Meadows has been completely redeveloped, in the time Corra has been present in Fernhill, by South Lanarkshire Council and in the early stages Corra supported the involvement of Fernhill residents in the design and use of the space
In 2021 Corra supported a local charity, The Ohana Club, to deliver a programme of family activities that were delivered on many of the highlighted spaces across the community
Spaces for community
Research showed that Fernhill was below the national average for broadband uptake within it’s homes. It was a surprise to learn that the Community Centre did not provide a public Wi-Fi, especially because of the patchy phone service in and around the building.
Corra worked with staff from the Financial Inclusion Network at South Lanarkshire Council and South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture to secure funding for iPads and laptops as well as the installation of a free public Wi-Fi service. Pre-pandemic, and hopefully again in the future, local residents can drop into the Community Centre and use one of the devices (or their own device) to access the internet for free.
Corra also took this opportunity to work with Community Learning and Development staff from the council to deliver free IT lessons which were accessed by a few local people.
Funding and support
In connecting with local community groups access to funding, to deliver community based activity, was an ongoing issue
Corra has worked with community groups in Fernhill to connect them with staff in local businesses who have gone on to support local activity. For example Morrisons supermarket provided free fruit on a weekly basis to Fernhill Soccer School for a period of time.
Corra, with match funding from South Lanarkshire Council, supported a local group to design and deliver a Participatory Budgeting process that made £10,000 available for community activity, e.g. Fernhill Playscheme received £3000 to fund a community trip to Blackpool.
Throughout 2020 and 2021 Corra supported local groups to access funding to help support their community through the pandemic.
Through the Ideas into Action budget for Fernhill Corra has distributed over £17,000 to support ideas from local people that benefit Fernhill.