Halfway Community Park

Halfway Community Park

Grantee: Southside Housing Association 

What the project set out to achieve

Southside Housing Association, in partnership with the local community and Glasgow City Council, completely transformed an underused, awkward to access and bland open space at Moss Heights to make a community park. Halfway Park would be landscaped to allow easier access for all, to greatly enhance and enrich the flora and fauna of the local area and offer a range of opportunities for people to get involved with, from community growing and learning to cycle, to volunteer tree care and gardening apprenticeships.

Where the project idea came from 

Prior to the project, Southside Housing Association carried out a major programme of refurbishment to high rise properties in the area. Whilst this enhanced the buildings, access to useable open space remained very limited although a large space was there to be used. Being on a slope, the area required investment so that its potential could be maximised. It seemed sensible that the building refurbishment would be followed up with a positive plan to turn this greenspace into a local asset.

How the community helped develop the project

Southside Housing Association carried out extensive door to door and drop in consultations. The proposal was well received and people were forthcoming with their suggestions and preferred options for activities and facilities to be included in the park. These suggestions were included in the masterplan. Southside Housing Association has since established Friends of Halfway Park, who were key to project development. Local community groups were contacted to see if they would be interested in being part of future developments and many responded positively including: Urban Roots, Southwest Cycles, Community Council, Govan and Craigton Integration Network, CC After School Club, Glasgow Tree Lovers, and Hillington Church. People saw the potential of the park for community events including volunteering, conservation and celebration. An early training programme was run to promote awareness during which Modern Apprentices participated in extensive tree planting works.

How the project fits into the bigger picture

This project fits with Southside Housing Association’s wider agenda to deliver services, opportunities and facilities improving incomes, life chances, skills and well-being. It also fits with key strategies: at EU level “action to improve the urban environment and revitalise cities’; at national level “well-designed, sustainable places, support people's physical and mental well-being, and satisfaction with neighbourhoods has an important influence on the overall quality of lives.”; and at local level “enable people to use and share the environment with its other living inhabitants. To improve the quality of our lives, - - - - - - a healthy biodiversity is a reflection of a healthy and sustainable community”. (Glasgow Local Biodiversity Action Plan). It fits with the Glasgow Play Strategy 2016-18 and Go Well research which identified access to greenspace as key to public health improvement in Glasgow.

How the project improved the local area

Halfway Park is now a huge asset to the area. It enhanced the natural environment by transforming a steep, bland, green open space, criss-crossed unnecessarily by old roads, into a rich, ecologically diverse landscape with an open canopy of native trees, nectar rich hedges, extensive wildflower meadow, and herbaceous beds, together with play space for various ages, structures to facilitate parkour activities and games, and better access. A range of flood resilience measures, including swales, raingardens, and underground SuDS, were also installed, reducing flooding.

In an area which has a high proportion and varied mix of people from ethnic backgrounds, as well as locally born and bred people, Halfway Park, through its community-led management, is providing a place for healthy outdoor activities helping to encourage opportunities for community integration and celebration.

In terms of how the park is used, there has been a significant change in respondent’s behaviour. In 2017 86% of respondents noted that they simply passed through the area on their way to somewhere else. In 2020, this has decreased to just 27% passing through the park on the way to elsewhere (i.e. they don’t just use the space to pass through). There has been a significant increase in respondents stating that they take the children to play at the park (increasing from 16% to 67%). 21% said they use the park in another way, including sitting to enjoy the sun, taking grandchildren or other children to play, sitting on a bench to relax or going to walk to look at the plants.

The work on this project led to the development and subsequent investment in a further GIF project at a neighbouring SHA site at Queensland Court and Gardens in Cardonald.

Through a successful bid to the National Lottery’s Community Fund, SHA appointed an Outdoor Activity and Well-being Officer in 2022 who worked across the Halfway Community Park and Queensland Community Park projects to engage residents in the outdoor spaces, which helped ensure that the longer term use of the spaces is fulfilled to their potential.

Please read our project blogs below to gain additional insight into the impacts of the project.

 

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