There are now eight Time Banks in Edinburgh.

• Broomhouse 
• Craigmillar 
• Inverleith 
• Leith 
• North Edinburgh 
• Portobello 
• South Edinburgh 
• West Edinburgh

Facilitated by the Volunteer Centre Edinburgh, the Citywide Edinburgh Time Bank Network provides support to Time Banks across the city. 

The Network meets quarterly giving members an opportunity to: –

• Share information and good practice

• Build links with other Time Banks

• Highlight common issues impacting on Timebanking

• Identify themes for joint training

• Explore ways to maximise involvement in and the impact of Timebanking in the city

• Ensure a consistent approach to monitoring and evaluation and measuring social impact

• Explore ways of linking up with other citywide initiatives, e.g. Edible Estates

• Facilitated by the Volunteer Centre Edinburgh, the Citywide Network provides support to Time Banks across the city. 

What is Timebanking?

Timebanking is a highly effective tool for developing social networks and building social capital, built on the principle that everyone has something to give.

Timebanking is based on the simple principle that for every hour of time a person contributes to help someone else; they receive the equivalent in time credits. These time credits are stored and then exchanged for services when needed from others. For example – if you help someone for an hour decorating their home, you can ‘buy’ an hour of someone helping you – let’s say – cutting your grass. We know that everyone has skills, knowledge and experience to offer – Timebanking is a way of putting these assets together and creating a better community.

Helping is a two-way street – Timebanking can turn strangers into friends and as in all friendships, you must be ready to receive as well as to give.  Timebanking is not volunteering or charity. It is about every Time Bank member offering their skills, abilities and knowledge to help others to a level that you can reasonably expect from a friend or neighbour.

Timebanking is not a substitute for services that you would normally pay for, such as installing a kitchen, or for getting services on the cheap. Time Bank members give and receive all sorts of services, such as listening and visiting, gardening and form filling, or sharing skills in music, knitting and using computers, to simple repairs, ironing and running errands. There are some services not provided such as childcare, babysitting and personal care.

Not so long ago we all knew our neighbours and knew which of them would do us a favour if we asked them for one – and our neighbours knew if we would be happy to do them a favour in return. Life has changed and our friends and family do not always live nearby and it is not so easy to ask neighbours for help these days, particularly if we do not know if we can ever pay them back.

The more people share their time and skills, the healthier and happier your neighbourhood will become. With Timebanking, everyday acts of kindness are recognised as the important contribution they are to everyone’s wellbeing.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

One hour equals one time credit – all work is valued equally – the currency is time

Reciprocity – giving and receiving builds trust and mutual respect

Valuing people as assets – not seeing them as problems – people are the real wealth of a community, and valuing their skills, talents, knowledge and experience build their sense of themselves as worthwhile members of society

Building Social Networks – a growing body of research cites loneliness and isolation as impacting negatively on both physical and mental health. “Having friends and being involved in community life makes people happier and healthier.  It can make as much difference as to how long you live as smoking.”  Professor Richard Wilkinson, co author of “The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone”.

WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

The idea was developed by Dr. Edgar S.Cahn a civil rights lawyer and speech writer for Robert Kennedy who dedicated his life to the fight for social justice.

In his 40’s Edgar Cahn suffered a massive heart attack, losing 65% of the capacity of his heart.  He was told he could no longer work and lay in hospital bed feeling useless – not a feeling he relished.  However it prompted his thinking about others whom society considered “useless” – older people, the unemployed, people with mental health issues, lone parents on benefit. He concluded that the one thing everyone has in common is time – we all start the day with 24 hours at our disposal – it’s what we do with that time that makes the difference.  Those who do paid work gain financial remuneration for their time which helps to define them as people and also gives status and value to their lives.

But what about the unpaid work of caring for and raising children, caring for elderly or disabled relatives, volunteering or being a community activist?  This Edgar reasoned was the work which underpinned society; in essence the operating system for everything else.  He called this work “The Core Economy” – the real work of caring, of loving, of being a citizen, a neighbour and a human being.  This work is not valued by the market economy so Edgar Cahn developed Time dollars as a mechanism by which it could be rewarded. Timebanking is now widely accepted as an ideal way.

• To value the contributions that people make to rebuilding and sustaining their communities;

• To remind people of the skills they already have and the contributions they are – and are capable of – making;

• To encourage people to take responsibility for their lives and  families;

• To ‘co-produce’ our public services efficiently and effectively.

Timebanking and Co-production are explained in detail in Edgar’s book – ‘No More Throw Away People’. 

Saturday 10 November, Kinghorn, Fife – free event, open to all (booking required)

How do we make it easier to eat locally? Come help shape your local food system. Our annual members’ meeting this year focuses on the practical:  how to help connect consumers and producers.

In the morning we have some inspiring speakers to give a ‘big picture’ of food problems and solutions, then in the afternoon we get down to nitty-gritty making some real changes happen. Sign up now to avoid disappointment.

 We’re pleased to be offering a child care facility for kids from ages 3-12 again. Please register to avoid disappointment.

MORNING TALKS

The morning session will inspire ideas for change. Drawing on the focus of our New Food Manifesto [see here] we are asking several leading figures to help us explore these topics by looking at issues around low carbon food, education and culture, health and wellbeing and innovation and enterprise.

• Land and Food: How do we get the Right to Grow? Author and campaigner Andy Wightman is Scotland’s leading Land Rights activist & Kat VandenBerg has been leading large-scale urban growing projects with the incredible Sow and Grow Everywhere project (SAGE)

• Food Education and Regional Mapping: Eve Keepax (Eco Schools) designs and teaches what thousands of Scottish children learn about food and the environment in sc hool, Dougie Watson (Farmers Markets Scotland) has been thinking through how we radicalise, reshape and maximise Farmers Markets.

• Innovation and Enterprise:  We have the wonderful Kate Bull specially from London from  The Peoples Supermarket and the equally wonderful Laura Stewart (Soil Association)

LUNCH

Our focus this year is about connecting consumer and producers. So we’ve invited a range of local food providers you can buy your lunch from (including Wild Rover, Steamie Bakehouse, Doorstep Bakery and others), allowing members to meet them and try their produce. 

AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS

• How to Set Up a Food Co-op practical advice and ideas on how to do it. Save money and club together with collective buying power

• Meet the Producer face to face discussion with the people who grow your food. What do you love and what do you need more of from your veg box/farm shop/local producer? Come and meet Pittormie Fruit Farm, Puddledub, Chillicious, Pllars of Hercules and others. 

• Being the Change  food and carbon reduction – where are we making a difference? How can we have a bigger impact? Come get geeky with us

• Wild Food Walk with Mark Williams, of Galloway Wild Foods. Come explore the free food on your doorstep with Scotland’s foremost wild food expert

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

What are we feeding our kids at school? Robin Gourlay has pioneered sustainable school meals in East Ayrshire and is now looking across Scotland to do the same

YOUR FIFE DIET: What Fife Diet will look like in 2020?

The Scottish Government has the ambitious target to reduce Scotland’s green house gases emissions by 42% by 2020. This will not be possible if we do not radically change the way we consume and produce our food. 

This is an interactive session led by Jamie Thoms to help us visualising our work to build a more sustainable food system and the steps we need to take to achieve this.What’s missing from your local food diet? What would you like to see grown, reared or fished here that’s not currently? 

REGISTER NOW

To help with planning we need to know who’s coming! The whole event is free – you just need to buy your own lunch. We will be unable to accept people for the conference on the day if they have not reserved a space. 

CHILDCARE

We will have a supervised play and activity area for children age 3 and over – Kids Club. Places are FREE but STRICTLY LIMITED and so you must book a place in advance. The sessions will coincide with the scheduled events. There will be no supervised childcare over the lunch time & children will return to parents during this and other breaks in the programme. When you book a kids place we assume it is for the whole day. 

The Dept of Energy and Climate Change is changing the regulations and incentives for community owned renewables, principally through the proposed introduction of a community FIT (Feed in Tariff). The concern is that the UK Govt is going to exclude the main legal forms adopted by Scottish communities when developing renewable energy projects. In this letter to Michael Moore, MP, Sec of State for Scotland,  Nicholas Gubbins CEO of Community Energy Scotland makes the case to include the legal structures more commonly used in Scotland : Companies limited by guarantee, SCIOs and CICs.

Click here to read letter.

Guardian

Britain’s largest union is mounting a challenge against payday lenders with plans to establish a nationwide credit union network.

Unite has pledged to abolish the “Wonga week” phenomenon whereby families use payday lenders to head off cash shortfalls at the end of the month, amid widespread criticism of Wonga and its 4,214% APR interest rate charge. A typical credit union – which normally recruits from a local area or workplace – uses its deposits to make small loans to members, making the model a viable alternative to payday borrowing.

Steve Turner, Unite’s director of executive policy, said it plans to use the recently launch of a Unite-backed credit union in Salford as the model for a nationwide network. He said: “We are in discussions to try to establish a UK-wide credit union that will give access to cheap finance and cheap credit to millions of people. We are trying to get to the point where you can get emergency loans through credit unions, to stop that third week being Wonga week. And that is for the working poor, let alone those people who are not in work.”

The UK has 400 credit unions, with more than 950,000 members, and Unite is seeking links with some of them as well as considering forming its own branches. Restrictions on the take-up of credit union membership have also been relaxed by the government, so organisations such as community groups and local authorities can join.

But a report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions warned this year the credit union sector is “not financially sustainable”. The study recommended the maximum annual interest rate for a credit union loan should be raised from 26% to 42%. It also called for more taxpayer support for the sector.

The Consumer Credit Counselling Service, one of the UK’s largest debt charities, said that the number of people experiencing difficulties with payday loans more than doubled in 2011, as the number of calls to the CCCS related to short-term borrowing rose from 7,841 in 2010 to 17,414. Last year the average debt on a payday loan was £1,267, according to the charity.

Adding to the drive for community-focused measures to alleviate squeezed incomes, Labour has launched a SwitchTogether campaign that aims to reduce utility bills for communities by bulk buying gas and electricity. The party has also proposed a regulatory limit on the duration of short-term loans and the interest charged.

A credit union push is one of the economic alternatives being highlighted by the Future That Works march in central London on Saturday. The march, organised by the Trades Union Congress to highlight counter-austerity policies such as a financial transactions tax, will be attended by tens of thousands of people.

Gerry Hassan, Scotsman

Centralisation has resulted in people being disconnected from public services. It’s time for radical reform. Scottish devolution was always going to produce centralisation, such as the Procurement Reform Bill, along with single police and fire forces, and at the same time the rhetoric of change seen in the current Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill.

It is more than a year since the publication of the Christie Commission on public sector reform and as financial circumstances tighten, never has the time been more ripe for radical reform. One approach is already on offer: the English marketisation route beloved by Andrew Lansley when he was Health Secretary; an alternative is the Scottish attitude of emphasising professional interests, integrated services and equity.

Yet while Scots professionals and politicians universally baulk at the idea of free schools, academies and foundation hospitals, they have to acknowledge that they tap into a wider public agenda than just that of marketisation and outsourcing. Instead, they address people’s desire for more of a say, for personalisation, diversity and 
choice, if not for the full “choice” agenda of competition. And this is where the Left, across the UK, and the Scottish consensus need to respond more imaginatively and less cautiously.

There is a disconnect in Scotland over public services as well as our wider society. Only 22 per cent of respondents in the recent Scottish Household Survey said they felt that they could influence local decisions; 36 per cent wanted to have a greater involvement; and only 23 per cent thought their local council was good at listening.

Scots are going to have to prepare for what is going to be a public sector revolution. This is going to come about because of peoples’ greater demands for having a say, being treated with respect, growing expectations and demographic changes. 

The old Fordist systems of centralisation and standardisation cannot deliver these. And yet for 
all the pretences, this is what still drives the dominant ethos in much of our public services. Old-fashioned, or new-style, social democracy 
thinks this way; trade union protection is the same: and even 
the apostles of the Right conform to this with their contracting-out culture and pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) rules, creating new vested interests such as G4S, Atos and Serco, which are even more unaccountable than public services. 

Government already talks much of the language of decentralism and populism, of “participatory budgeting”, “community rights” and “community compulsory purchase” in the Community Empowerment Bill for example. It does so without the philosophy of centralisation being checked, or any emerging new set of decentralist values, which recognise the need for government to have the confidence to “let go”.

Scotland has been centralising for a long time. The 1940s welfare state advanced and ennobled most Scots lives, but it removed lots of local arrangements in the name of defeating ill-health and poverty. The 1973 local government reorganisation abolished a mosaic of ancient burghs and town councils while breaking the local link many communities had with their common good funds. 

Then the Tory gerrymandering of 1995 abolished the regional tier of local government, and halved the number of councils. The result is that whereas Scotland had more than 200 councils in the 1940s, today it has a mere 32, producing one of the most centralised, standardised countries in all Western Europe. To put a halt to this isn’t to return to some patrician golden era of local government. What is required is a different path, philosophy and practice for public services and the public realm, rather than marketisation or the conservative inertia of much of present day Scotland.

A Self-Government Bill could be Scotland’s answer to free schools and academies, drawing on 1980s examples of decentralisation such as Walsall, Sheffield and the GLC.

Two options are available. The first is to offer a facilitative framework to local communities and public bodies to allow them to become self-governing; the second would be a comprehensive nationwide decentralisation.

The first carries with it objections that only the affluent, prosperous and confident middle classes will seize the “means of production”, so to speak. The second, that it would force places and organisations to govern themselves when they don’t currently have the capacity and resources to do so. There are also practical considerations. One is that it would break apart systems of redistribution that central government has spent years developing. 

Yet we know that redistribution isn’t very effective, that middle class people gain most from public services, and all this would actually aid a culture of transparency and empowerment where we could “follow the money” through the system.

Another issue would be defining communities and public agencies that could become self-governing. There would be problems with boundaries, and a particular challenge for public bodies would concern governance and who could control them: workers, consumers or people living in their vicinity, or a mix of these groups. This is a debate that has to be started in Scotland and the UK. Otherwise what we are effectively saying is that only champions of reform are the new vested interests. And that is a marker we should not easily give them. 

Scotland has barely begun its democratic revolution. We have a parliament and 129 MSPs but we have not begun to democratise society or blow the cobwebs and dust away from much of public Scotland. Such an approach would be devolution morphing into self-government and self-determination. Strangely, it is an approach that the early days of both Labour and SNP have much sympathy with, the former with its guild socialist roots, and the latter, with its localism and suspicion of institutional Scotland.

Public services and local authorities have to be owned by “the public” and “the locale” and to do that we have to move away from a mix of centralisation and standardisation. 

One-size-fits-all isn’t good enough. Nor is a parliament shifting from London to Edinburgh enough democracy. Scotland needs a long overdue democratic revolution.

At first glance, Maurice Lim Miller’s formula for fighting poverty sounds disconcertingly simple – if not downright utopian. Give people on low incomes a financial incentive to work together and they will build strong local networks that help lift them out of poverty. A plain speaker who is pleasingly devoid of professional jargon, Lim Miller says his approach is common sense. “You have to let families deal with [the problem] in their own way.”

As chief executive and driving force behind the Family Independence Initiative (FII), an anti-poverty, not-for-profit organisation based in Oakland, California, the former youth worker has been assiduously rewriting the rulebook on combating entrenched poverty. He has been garnering considerable attention in the process from policymakers and the media, which was fuelled further when he was awarded a coveted MacArthur “genius” fellowship this month. And with the latest figures showing that one in five children in the US live in poverty, he stands to attract even more interest in the months ahead.

In a nutshell, Lim Miller explains, FII challenges the conventional notion of “needs-based” poverty interventions and the stereotype that low-income families are not capable and rely on outside guidance. To this end, the organisation recruits small groups of struggling low-income families in poorer communities (they must know one another already) and incentivises them to work together to improve their circumstances. Regardless of any state benefits they receive, each family is given a computer and a modest stipend – no more than $500 (£312) per quarter – in return for documenting and reporting any progress they make by working with the other families.

These small steps, says Lim Miller, can be anything from learning leadership skills to increasing savings, to pooling resources for childcare so that parents can get out to work. But whatever form it takes, the point is that there are no professionals on the ground stipulating what their goals should be, or instructing on how to reach them.

Dependency

The idea, Lim Miller stresses, is that low-income households are steered away from dependency on welfare programmes, which, he says, “no matter how well meaning are disempowering”. It is taken for granted that the families “will spend the money much more efficiently”, he adds, if it is simply handed over and left up to them. He says the guiding principle is that people from poor backgrounds are neither the “victims” they are often portrayed as by people on the left, or “lazy” and undeserving as they are frequently labelled by the right. “Just like anyone else, these families want some control and choice in their lives.”

The project, which Lim Miller acknowledges was a bold experiment when it launched with a small cohort of families in Oakland almost a decade ago, has grown steadily. There are now more than 350 families participating in Boston, San Francisco and Oakland with further expansion planned, including an online social networking hub. “In the first two years [of the project] in Oakland, incomes jumped among the group by 27%. Savings were up by 300%. Nine out of the 23 families had bought homes,” he says. The latest data from the initiative shows considerable progress in San Francisco and Boston with average incomes up.

Lim Miller talks too of a “ripple effect” within communities. “People can see that somebody achieved something … Expectations change.” The perception people have of their life chances is critical, he argues. “If you are in a community where no one is getting ahead, what does that do [to you]?”

The participants are not families in crisis but those trying to get a foot on the social mobility ladder. “I’ve been working with low-income families for over 20 years. These are families who are trying, who want to get out [of poverty] but are stuck,” he explains.

Lim Miller speaks eloquently about how his background as the son of an impoverished immigrant Mexican mother propelled him to find new ways to tackle the cycle of extreme poverty. “This approach is very personal. My mom was a single mom who was determined for me to get out of poverty for good. Pride was important to her,” he says. However, FII was also born of professional frustration. “I came into [FII] from doing non-profit work. When I saw the kids of the people I worked with, when I started out, coming [to services for help], I thought: ‘Whatever we are doing, it isn’t working’. I began to question why.”

Just as Lim Miller was beginning to probe into why anti-poverty strategies had failed for so long, he was asked in 1999 by the then mayor of Oakland and current governor of California, Jerry Brown, to come up with alternative ways to channel money already set aside to tackle poverty. Brown asked Lim Miller why, when so many social workers and professionals were being employed to run schemes to help poor people, the problem remained so intractable. “Jerry said to me: ‘Doesn’t this seem like poverty pimping to you?'” When he went back to Brown with the idea to give money directly to poor families to see what they did with it, the mayor took an unexpected leap of faith and FII was born.

Lim Miller’s work has been recognised at the highest levels and his input is being sought by thinktanks including the rightwing Heritage Foundation.

In 2010, he was appointed to President Obama’s White House Council for Community Solutions, an advisory board exploring fresh approaches to mobilising people to work together on addressing community problems. In 1999, even before FII was up and running, Miller was honoured by the then president Bill Clinton at the state of the union address for his youth, race relations and poverty work. A string of other awards has also been lavished on him.

Yet, for all the accolades, Lim Miller is clearly a pragmatist. The recognition means nothing more than an opportunity to bolster FII’s work. Cuts to social services have ensured that spare cash is in short supply – although it is doubtful state money would be forthcoming even without cuts. In his experience, officials are not amenable to an unorthodox project that deliberately does not prescribe its outcomes. Some funding has been secured from private foundations, but many remain reticent for similar reasons to government.

Lim Miller suggests that, despite such obstacles, a combination of factors has coalesced to mean attitudes to tackling poverty might be shifting. Among these is the evidence of FII’s success and that the most severe recession since the 1930s has hurled a multitude of families into poverty. Important also, he says, has been the growing awareness of the widening wealth gap between rich and poor and the decline of social mobility.

So, does he think his approach might translate to Britain or to other countries? He says one of “the most important lessons” he learned when the project moved beyond Oakland was that cultural, ethnic and local differences may exist, but the very fact that families set their own goals makes the programme uniquely adaptable. “People in Britain concerned about poverty in the future need to look at the social context,” he says. “Lifting people above a poverty line is not enough. People must have a stake. There has to be something tangible in the long term. That’s what gives people hope.”

By Simon Birch

The leader of the global co-operative movement today outlined an ambitious vision for making co-operatives the fastest growing business model by the end of the decade.

Launching the Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade, Dame Pauline Green, president of the International Co-operative Alliance, the trade body representing co-ops from around the world said: “We want to see co-operatives rise to the top of global business as the fastest growing business model by 2020. Our strategy is for the co-operative model to become the acknowledged leader in economic, social and environmental sustainability and therefore the model preferred by people. And as a result of this to become the fastest growing form of enterprise.”

Dame Pauline was speaking at the opening of Co-operatives United, a three day event designed to showcase the resurgent and increasingly confident global co-operative community.

A mash-up of conferences, exhibitions and fringe festival, organisers are hailing Co-ops United as one of the biggest-ever international gatherings of global co-operative organisations and is being held to mark the close of the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives.

Over 10,000 co-op members representing 1,500 co-ops from 45 countries have gathered under Manchester’s legendary leaden skies to hear how the global co-op economy offers the opportunity to build a more ethical and resilient global economy.

In a defiantly upbeat speech, Dame Pauline said that this was a pivotal moment in the history of the co-operative sector.

“This international year has seen the global co-operative movement come together in a way which was previously unimaginable. Now our challenge is to build on this hard work in a way which garners results. We now are in a position to cement our business model in markets worldwide”.

With research published today showing that the top 300 co-operative and mutual enterprises have a turnover of just under $2tn, the global co-operative sector now comprises 1.4 million business across the world and has one billion members.

Dame Pauline expressed frustration that the importance of the co-op economy has yet to be recognised by the leaders of the global economy, a point which was brought home by the absence of any Government minister at this morning’s opening ceremony.

“Why is there still not a co-op economist within the IMF?” demanded Dame Pauline who added, “We deserve to be heard in global forums.”

Co-ops United is also throwing its doors open to the public with a packed programme of free exhibitions, workshops and tours enabling people to come face to face with the global co-op community.

Over 100 co-operative businesses from Canada to China have been assembled in the world’s largest global exhibition of co-operative businesses whilst UK co-ops are represented in wide range of sectors from co-operative schools, shops and healthcare to finance, housing and pubs.

“Co-operatives United is a huge celebration of co-operatives around the world,” said Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK, the UK trade association for co-operatives.

“We invite families, children and all those interested in the movement to come and really engage with how to live a co-operative life.”

Jennifer Wallace 

It is now five years, since the Trust published ‘A Charter for Rural Communities’, our comprehensive review of the challenges and opportunities facing rural communities in the UK and Ireland. Much has changed in this time – rural demographics have shifted and we are facing severe financial and environmental challenges. At the same time technological advances have continued apace and there are new opportunities for communities to manage local assets and shape the way public services are delivered.

Our new report ‘Future Directions in Rural Development’ written by Professor Shucksmith sets out this changed rural landscape and reviews the varying success of different approaches to rural development. 

‘Future Directions in Rural Development – Executive Summary’ identifies the risks of leaving unequal rural communities to their own devices and the importance of an ‘enabling state’ supporting communities to reach their full potential. 

It draws out some of the key issues facing rural communities in the 21st Century.  These issues: access to broadband, digital participation, the importance of local enterprise, community ownership and a more ‘enabling state’.  These are recurring themes in the Trust’s work and are key policy areas that the Trust is focused.

The conclusions of the review are that a supportive and responsive government is required at a UK, devolved and local level. Action on all of these levels is needed to: address regional level inequalities; build capacity in local communities, and mitigate against any unintended consequences of macro level policies at a local level.

The full report will be published online in September 2012 and made available here. 

The National Planning Framework (NPF) is a strategy for the long-term development of Scotland’s towns, cities and countryside. The NPF is about shaping Scotland’s future and is concerned with how Scotland develops over the next 20 years and how to make that possible. The NPF identifies key strategic infrastructure needs to ensure that each part of the country can develop to its full potential.

Planning legislation requires Scottish Ministers to revise the NPF within 5 years of publication. Scottish Ministers have confirmed that work on the preparation of NPF3 will commence in autumn 2012, focusing strongly on economic recovery and the transition to a low carbon economy.

Scottish Government launched the revision of the NPF in September with the publication of the Participation Statement.   A series of stakeholder events and public drop-in sessions are being organised at venues across the country – see here for details.

Lack of transport is a problem we more readily identify with rural areas but surprisingly there are some districts in our major cities where there are no bus services – not just in the evenings but at any time.

 This was the situation in the Drumchapel area of Glasgow when earlier this year the main commercial bus operator for the area withdrew their services. This left hundreds of local residents without decent public transport to surrounding areas and Glasgow city centre thus cutting them off from all sorts of basic amenities, shops and health services. Drumchapel’s hilly topography meant that elderly residents couldn’t walk the long distances to their nearest bus service and so were in danger of becoming isolated in their homes.

Community Transport Glasgow (CTG) and Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) got together and worked out a way forward. Using a little used piece of transport legislation and with the provision of vehicles from SPT they were able to work out a new model of local bus service. Using small buses a new flexible “hail and ride” service has been established which picks people up anywhere on the Drumchapel estates and takes them to the nearest transport hubs so that they can then connect with mainstream transport to take them round the city. In a few months’ time when the pattern of use has been established a route will be designed and a timetable set up which meets the needs of the local residents.

“ This is a great example of partnership really working in practice. “ said John MacDonald, Director for Scotland at the Community Transport Association. “CTG have been innovative in the way they have set this service up and SPT have been extremely supportive which means that Drumchapel residents now have a viable local bus service.”     

Details of Community Transport Association’s forthcoming conference can be viewed here.