The 'go to' organisation for Local Government improvement in Scotland

Specific impacts include:

• Facilitating bringing together representatives from South Lanarkshire Council, Community Engagement, Development Trusts and Action Groups within South Lanarkshire, to discuss Burnhill as a community
• Enabling data led conversations that highlight concerning local issues, such as high cancer rates and people’s proximity to derelict land
• Supporting the refresh and implementation of the Burnhill Neighbourhood Plan to include consideration of all of Scotland’s Place and Wellbeing Outcomes through a Place and Wellbeing Assessment
• Enabling data to be more accessible to the Burnhill community in the form of a ‘Data Explanation Guide’ and Public Health Scotland data analysts now considering its use for other areas in Scotland.

Our story so far

The data that the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme collected with help of the Public Health Scotland Local Intelligence Support (LIST) Analysts Team was instrumental in initiating and developing many conversations. Bringing together representatives from Health Improvement, South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership, South Lanarkshire Council Planning, Clyde Gateway, South Lanarkshire Community Engagement Team, and local community groups including Burnhill Action Group and Healthy n’ Happy Community Development Trust.

The data provided a number of insights for Rutherglen in general but also for Burnhill, where 28% of the population are in receipt of out of work benefits and life expectancy for males is 7.5 years less than in close by High Crosshill. One further key aspect the data highlighted was in relation to high levels of unused and derelict land. Our data highlighted that, within Rutherglen, a third of people live within 500 meters of derelict land and in Burnhill, this is heightened even further with 95% of people living within 500 meters of vacant or derelict land - and some of this land is highlighted as being contaminated. Concerns from the community therefore stemmed around safety of the land and those using it, including children.

This initiated collaborative conversations and actions that filled a gap which had previously been missing.

For example, the Planning and Regulatory Services Team at South Lanarkshire Council compiled an online map of specific derelict land sites which helped to highlight how serious an issue the derelict and contaminated land was for residents in the area. This was shared with the Rutherglen Steering Group and helped to highlight the clusters of derelict land in Rutherglen along with individual areas. This was then used to inform the Rutherglen Town Centre Action Plan and initiated conversations to place a (£750,000of a £1.4m bid) bid into the Regeneration Capital Grants Fund. This submission by the Enterprise and Sustainable Development Services at South Lanarkshire Council is for a project aiming to deliver a net zero industrial building on vacant and derelict land within the Burnhill neighbourhood. The status of this bid will be delivered by the end of January 2024.

Since the COVID pandemic, it became clear that priorities for the Burnhill community had changed. Community engagement work was undertaken with Burnhill Community Development and Burnhill residents on a refresh of the Burnhill Neighbourhood Plan, to understand what these new priorities were.

The Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme supported this refresh by undertaking a Place and Wellbeing Assessment in February 2023.The purpose of an Assessment is to consider the potential impacts of a plan or proposal on a place and how it impacts those who use that place. It looks to mitigate adverse impacts, enhance positive ones and reduce social and economic inequality. The Assessment reviewed the priorities identified by residents in the 2020-2021 Neighbourhood Plan to consider their contribution to delivering on all the features of a place that can enable wellbeing, otherwise called the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes. Participants at the Assessment were asked to use their knowledge to consider how the future Burnhill Neighbourhood Plan could impact on creating a place that promotes wellbeing. The assessment produced recommendations which included the importance of bringing people together from a range of agencies for joint working along with meaningful community engagement and involving the community in decision making. The recommendations also highlighted that the quality of open spaces. The process supports both the refresh and implementation of the next Burnhill Neighbourhood Plan. Moving forward, the Shaping Places for Wellbeing approach is now informing the Neighbourhood Planning process across all of South Lanarkshire.

Our Shaping Places for Wellbeing Community Link Lead has been working with Community Development Workers in the Community Engagement Team at South Lanarkshire Council exploring which emerging priorities were linked to the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes. Doing so has highlighted what support is needed to help the community be a healthier place. For example, it emerged that the theme of Movement was viewed positively due to fairly reliable transport links, however the theme of Spaces brought a huge amount of rich, insightful conversation due to issues with the quality of spaces within Burnhill. It was clear that there was an abundance of green space, but the quality of that green space was a major issue.

Alongside this, the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme has helped to make the aforementioned data accessible and intelligible for those living in Burnhill. Helping communities to understand the statistics in their own area had not happened before. It was felt that questions such as ‘where is the data coming from?’ and ‘what is the data telling us?’, had to be answered to help bring the data to life for community members and build connections. Therefore, a ‘Data Explanation Guide’ for Burnhill and Bankhead North was created with the aim of clarifying for the Burnhill community where the data had come from, what it suggested for the community, and how the data had been collated. The guide has given the community a chance to question the data and a voice to shape messages and provide more context to any ‘concerning data’ which was emerging, such as low cancer screening rates. The impact of living close to derelict land was another issue highlighted in the Data Explanation Guide, particularly areas with clusters of land classed as vacant or derelict.

Finally, the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme approach helped to raise the communities voice and shine a light on daily issues which local residents are facing. It has supported conversations between groups who would not have normally met to address these local issues. For example:

• Issues faced by residents around recycling bins were resolved due to expanded links with Council initiated teams and colleagues not previously accessible to them;
• Facilitation of meetings to develop and co-create a delivery plan for the overarching community plan promoted a more collaborative approach to the work as these teams became more aware of each other’s workstreams: and
• Undertaking a Place and Wellbeing Assessment on the Burnhill Neighbourhood Plan has helped to provide an evidence-based support for the plan to take a place based approach. Support was also provided to map the priorities coming from the neighbourhood plan using the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes.