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Community, Plan, Action! (Part 2) - Camelon and Tamfourhill
Manage episode 359890032 series 3373769
In today’s episode we continue our story on ins and outs of creating a Community Climate Action Plan, based on Keep Scotland Beautiful’s work over the last couple of years.
Kaska chats to the most recent participant in KSB’s community planning project, a community of Camelon and Tamfourhill, near Falkirk. We hear from John Hosie, Community Safety Engager who brought together the core planning group, and Falkirk High students, Olivia and Maya, with their teacher Lilly who took part in the planning sessions.
Their planning group was a partnership between Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill, Tamfourhill Community Hub, Tidy Clean and Green Group, Forth Valley Sensory Centre, Go Forth and Clyde and Falkirk High School.
We end the story with a few tips and KSB’s future plans from Heather.
Listen to the previous episode for PART 1 of the story with the overview from the KSB’s Heather Ashworth and a conversation with Kate and Christine from Sustainable Kirriemuir, about their experience as one of the communities involved in the project pilot.
Credits
Interview, recording and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Keep Scotland Beautiful. Community Climate Action Plan project: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-change/climate-change/community-climate-action-plans/
Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill https://opcamelontamfourhill.co.uk/
Camelon and Tamfourfill climate action plan https://opcamelontamfourhill.co.uk/community-climate-action-plan-camelon-and-tamfourhill/
The Place Standard Tool (with climate lens) https://www.ourplace.scot/About-Place-Standard
Transcript
[00:00:35] Kaska Hempel: Hello, I'm Kaska Hempel, your Story Weaver for today. And in this episode, we continue with the story on community climate action plans based on the work done with communities by Keep Scotland Beautiful over the last couple of years. Listen to part one to hear the overview from the KSB's Heather Ashworth, and a conversation I had with Kate and Christine from Sustainable Kirriemuir about their experience as one of the communities involved in the project pilot.
[00:01:06] Kaska Hempel: Today, we hear from the community of Camelon and Tamfourhill, near Falkirk, who have just freshly emerged from their planning process. Last autumn, I was joined on Zoom by John Hosie, who brought together the planning group and Falkirk High students, Olivia and Maya and their teacher Lily, who took part in the planning sessions. To start, I ask them to paint us a picture of the area and their community.
[00:01:34] John Hosie: Tamfourhill is an interesting community. It's post-industrial central Scotland. Canal network goes through our area and the Falkirk wheel and the hinter land of that is forest and wooded. But on either side of it, there is areas, significant areas of multiple deprivation. I'm John Hosie, I'm the Community Safety Engager, and I'm employed by the Our Place Camelon And Tamfourhill Project, which is managed by the Tamfourhill Tenants Residence Organisation.
[00:02:09] John Hosie: One of the positive parts of the area is a very strong sense of identity. So somebody from Camelons a Mariner and a Mariner is because of the historic relationship of Camelon to the river and the water. And in more recent history that possibly would be the canal. So, it has a strong sense of place and a strong sense of who it is and what it was.
[00:02:35] John Hosie: The populations around about 7,000, and there's maybe about four distinct neighborhoods within that community making up Camelon and Tamfourhill. The area's quite fortunate in that, although it's urban and generally post-war council, housing stock, there's a lot of green species within the area. And there's the two major canals go through it and where they interchange at the Falkirk wheel.
[00:03:03] John Hosie: So there's significant areas of green open spaces and potentially leisure recreation and environmental potential at all of these locations.
[00:03:16] Olivia McDonald: Yeah. I quite like Dollar Calendar Park. I'm Olivia McDonald and I am a prefect here at Falkirk High School. I feel like Calendar Park is actually quite good because compared to some other places that I go, they're quite good with clearing up the area.
[00:03:32] Olivia McDonald: It's such a nice space for children and people to go on walks and just, you know, enjoy themselves.
[00:03:38] Maya Rankin: I really like the Falkirk wheel. I live quite close to the Falkirk wheel, so I'm about like a 10 minute walk away, so I quite like going there. My name's Maya Rankin. I'm a student here at Falkirk High School with Olivia and I'm 15 years old.
[00:03:52] Maya Rankin: They have bins everywhere. That's one thing I do realise. They've got bins everywhere, especially because the amount of people are tourists that come with picnics and stuff. But it's also like a really good educational area, I would say. It's got a lot of history to it. So it's a really good place for families to go and it's very inclusive.
[00:04:10] Maya Rankin: It's got stuff for everyone. It's got play parks, it's got the water, activities. It's got everything. I really like it there.
[00:04:16] John Hosie: I think that probably the greatest challenge of community needs it is fairly typical of Central Scotland post-industrial. And it faces, there's I think, three data zones within the top 5% in the social index of multiple deprivation.
[00:04:30] John Hosie: Poverty's a real issue. Fuel poverty, food poverty. And you know, that is fairly obvious or blatant in a sense. So these are the challenges the community faces. It's from my perspective, a really vibrant and good place to work. A welcoming community. And I live in a foreign country called Alloa and I was always made to feel absolutely welcome and part of the community since the day I first worked there.
[00:04:57] John Hosie: So that is a strength that has informal support networks. But a lot of work is still required around what I would call community development work. So there isn't a lot of people prepared to form themselves into structured committees or development trusts or vehicles for community action and community change.
[00:05:17] John Hosie: But there's a very positive informal network there. I think the climate crisis underpins a lot of these challenges, and they are exasperated by the existing economic and social challenges within the area.
[00:05:31] Kaska Hempel: How come you got involved in the development of a climate action planning? Where did that come out of?
[00:05:36] John Hosie: Two reasons.
[00:05:37] John Hosie: The community had identified environmental concerns as a priority for community safety. And acknowledgement that the climate emergency is a community safety concern. My argument post in 2020, May 2020 in full lockdown, tasked with having to consult and engage with the community around their priorities for community safety.
[00:06:01] John Hosie: The biggest issue that was identified of greatest concern to the community at that time, and by far the biggest concern by a long way was littering. Fly tipping. The state of open green spaces, the amount of detritus that was lying around the community. Although there were other concerns there related to drug use and addiction, and there were concerns around things that won't surprise you around antisocial behaviour.
[00:06:30] John Hosie: The environmental concerns outshone everything else. So a response was needed to that. A community-based response. And we did a number of things. We launched a campaign to keep Camelon and Tamfourhill tidy clean and green. We were able to mobilize some volunteers and we got about the whole process of tidying up, cleaning up, and greening our community.
[00:06:51] John Hosie: Young people in particular were getting involved in canal clear up work, clearing the water, clearing the tow path. There was a lot that was about community cohesion, but also reconnecting the community with the canal. So it was connected to the community's industrial past, but it had become an area that was more perceived to be a bit antisocial behaviour of risk taking and unsafe.
[00:07:16] John Hosie: So the clearing up of that canal reconnected the community with the canal. So there was that strand that was going on. The other issues, the whole cost of living crisis and energy crisis was impacting on a community that was already facing economic and social challenges. So one particular very strong strand was the Tamfourhill Community Hub who sat on the core group to develop this plan.
[00:07:46] John Hosie: They were going through asset transfer of their building from the council into community ownership. And the gas and electric bills are absolutely not sustainable. The bills are going through the roof. You know, we're looking at 30,000 pounds a year to heat and light a building. That's a salary of a worker.
[00:08:06] John Hosie: That's a lot of provision in terms of youth work or adult work or community development work. It's a massive amount of money to a small charity and you know, we can talk about community safety in any kind of context, but if you don't have a community hub for the community to come together, then it's going to be to the detriment of community safety and community cohesion.
[00:08:28] John Hosie: That building's existence has become existential. If we don't find ways of being more efficient with energy, if we don't find alternative energy sources. The building's future is very unclear. Other groups there were piecemeal and disjointed. We were involved with community growing activities and there was some litter picking going on and there was other pockets of activities.
[00:08:52] John Hosie: So bringing these priority issues together and bringing the different groups engaged with these activities together to form a coherent community climate action plan seemed a very logical thing to do, a necessary thing to do. So my role was really kind of as an enabler and facilitator of that initial core group and setting that agenda.
[00:09:12] Lilly: My name is Lilly and I'm a high school music teacher at Falkirk High School. But I'm also doing an acting PT job in wider community and parental engagement. So as part of that, I make quite a lot of contact with John and have kind of been involved in things like taking the pupils out on litter picks and canal clear ups with them.
[00:09:30] Lilly: And as part of that, it's kind of continued on into being part of the community climate action plan. And then I went to a group of pupils in our school. So we have what we call pupil junior management team, which Olivia and Maya are a part of, or were a part of, should I say. Last year. They're in S4 now. But last year I took groups of children with me along to meetings with John and the rest of the team, and Olivia and Maya were at quite a lot of those.
[00:09:53] Olivia McDonald: We started to go on litter picks with Changemakers, which is another team here that, you know, do a lot of things for the environment. And basically, seeing all rubbish everywhere. It sort of made me feel, you know, disappointed and realised how important it is.
[00:10:11] Lilly: As a school we're in the process of kind of working towards our green award.
[00:10:16] Lilly: And so Olivia was talking about the Changemakers group there, and that is, that's our kind of eco group in school. I think just taking the pupils out and actually seeing what damage littering particularly is doing to the community is just quite eye-opening and is an area as a school that we are really focusing on is our litter strategy.
[00:10:35] Lilly: Because we are aware that, you know, littering happens and it's not always just our school pupils. We do know that. But they, you know, they can be a focus sometimes, which is unfortunate. We've also, as a school, we've been trying to put together or we have put together to say...
[00:10:49] Olivia McDonald: The community charter.
[00:10:51] Lilly: Community charter, yeah. Do you want to maybe talk a bit about what that is, Olivia?
[00:10:54] Olivia McDonald: So it's our charter and it's basically about how we can help the environment and what the school could do and what the pupils could do when they're going out for lunch or just how they could be respectful towards local businesses and the environment.
[00:11:10] Olivia McDonald: And we went around during our litter picks actually. To ask some shop owners or local businesses around the area to put up the charter, the posters for it. And, you know, they were very open to doing it and it was good.
[00:11:26] Lilly: So I think our litter strategy at Falkirk High is a big focus this year.
[00:11:29] Lilly: And being part of the Community Climate Action plan is helping us to make an improvement in the community.
[00:11:35] John Hosie: I mean the core group that have taken the plan forward, it's absolutely essential that the young people were involved. And I can only thank the school so much for giving so much commitment to this
[00:11:46] John Hosie: And the school. It doesn't just serve Camelon and Tamfourhill. Falkirk High is what it says, it's Falkirk. But they are a really important part of our community. But the other groups that took part in the core group, the Forth Valley Sensory Centre. They too, by their name. They have a remit that covers more than just our local community.
[00:12:05] John Hosie: And they were another organisation that are an asset to our community, but haven't always been integrated with neighborhood-based work. And they came on board with us and that was really important as well. And working closely in partnership with our Tidy Clean And Green Community Group, which is a resident led group along with the two Tamfourhill organisations.
[00:12:25] John Hosie: So the bringing together of these groups was an important part of this process as well.
[00:12:31] Kaska Hempel: So what was the actual process and when did it happen, and what did it involve for you as a community?
[00:12:38] John Hosie: I can't remember when we actually sat down and started the process. It must have been around about May last year.
[00:12:46] John Hosie: So I put in an initial proposal to Keep Scotland Beautiful, to ask them for support, to facilitate the process. And that came about at a good time because there were some resources available through the Community Renewal fund and a consortium of organisations of which I was also involved in had some resources at the time.
[00:13:08] John Hosie: So that married up quite nicely. The proposal to do the plan and there being some resources to make it happen. So that's where Heather became involved.
[00:13:18] Lilly: One of the main starting points was thinking about what we already do. So, you know, we play a part as a school in the community, and it was kind of thinking about what do we actually do already to give back to the community.
[00:13:30] Lilly: You know, we do food bank donation appeal around about Christmas time. As I was speaking about, the Changemakers group that we already have. And then, you know, the other kinda of involvement with litter picks and things. And then coming along to those meetings was about talking to all the other groups, what they're doing and then seeing, you know, are there any links?
[00:13:49] Lilly: What are priorities as a whole group? What are your individual priorities? And it kinda came together through that way I would say.
[00:13:55] Kaska Hempel: So truly collaborative process. It's wonderful to see. How was it working with adults?
[00:14:00] Olivia McDonald: It's actually really good. They've been really helpful and very inspiring.
[00:14:05] Maya Rankin: They have more knowledge than we do. I'll say that. We're, you know, coming into this. I'm gonna be honest, we were a bit clueless about it. But having John and his team working with us, it's been a real game changer for us.
[00:14:16] Kaska Hempel: So I just wanted to ask you, how did it feel being involved in this as a young person?
[00:14:21] Kaska Hempel: Community action can be seen as sort of adults realm and tackling really big issues.
[00:14:26] Olivia McDonald: It felt well, very achieving. Like we've achieved a lot.
[00:14:32] Maya Rankin: And especially, you know, we've came up with new ideas that we had in the back of our heads and we thought would never be able to be, you know, kind of made by us, if you would. But the fact that we have makes us not only as in ourselves but as pupils and prefects and members of Falkirk High and members of our own community.
[00:14:51] Maya Rankin: It makes us feel very grateful that we're able to do this.
[00:14:53] Olivia McDonald: Very proud as well. I mean, it's all going towards, you know, well, our future, everybody's future.
[00:15:00] Kaska Hempel: How was it working with young people on this project?
[00:15:03] Lilly: I think it's great to have a kind of different outlook on things. There's lots of things that the pupils would say or suggest that I wouldn't have particularly thought of.
[00:15:13] Lilly: You know, all the pupils that we had along, they enjoy speaking about things and their confident skills were kind of growing as each meeting happened. So yeah, I found it great working with them.
[00:15:22] John Hosie: My background is youth work, so I didn't need any convincing that young people were the key to this in many ways, I don't want to sound over dramatic, but this is an existential issue.
[00:15:37] John Hosie: If the planet is to continue and we're to enjoy quality of life, then action is required. The time the full impact of this is realised, I probably won't be here, but the generation behind me will. So they need to be empowered to take control of this in as much way as they can without our guidance. And I think, you know, young people have demonstrated their willingness and ability to do that.
[00:16:05] John Hosie: So I don't think it's an option. I think it's necessary. I mean, I use the strap line often young people have the solution, not the problem. And we need to invest in that. And Maya and Olivia are excellent examples of that young people will really require and need their enthusiasm and insight. You've got to remember when you get to my age and people become quite cynical about things and things can't change and that still frustrates me because things can change. Things must change. And young people have the energy, enthusiasm, and just the ability to do that.
[00:16:42] Kaska Hempel: I was going to ask you about any community actions that you identified as something that might go ahead or is going ahead.
[00:16:52] Olivia McDonald: During meetings, we've talked about food education and how to cook well seasonally and how, you know, it's important for young people to learn more about how to, you know, make decent meals on a budget. Just really realistic things. But also how to do it with helping the environment, recycling, eating seasonally, and also eating maybe your own homegrown veg.
[00:17:19] Maya Rankin: One of our old captains for P G M T was really passionate about starting up a gardening club or something to do with gardening within our school community.
[00:17:28] Maya Rankin: Which we have done. We're currently growing potatoes, I think, and our garden out the back. But we've got some teachers also putting in extra time and work and helping out with that. And we've got loads of pupils who are very passionate about seeing what they eat. I'm sure we've used a few of the potatoes that are growing now in home ec.
[00:17:45] Maya Rankin: So it is a really good garden. Obviously we're not growing much right now because of the weather, but we're hoping to start growing a lot more come the season next year. And use a lot of it, not only in our home ec kitchens, but hopefully also in our canteen kitchens as well.
[00:18:00] John Hosie: The big priority at Tamfourhill is energy efficiency. We now have a more detailed plan of action to look at our energy efficiency audit of the Tamfourhill Community Hub. So that will partly be to look at alternative energy sources like solar heat pumps and so on. But it'll also look at how within the existing structures, as are things that we can do. Better insulation, windows, heating systems. Do we need the whole heating system on all of the time in all of the rooms?
[00:18:36] John Hosie: So we have a process now in place that will start with an energy efficiency audit of the building. From that, we will come up with proposals about what needs to happen to improve that situation, and I think that will probably involve some kind of grant submission to one of the funds. Scottish Government funds.
[00:18:57] John Hosie: It was maybe a medium term action. It's now a short term action. We need to see results and we'd hope to come back at this time next year and say we're in the process of installing heat pumps. We're in the process of putting solar panels on the roof. Going back to the community growing. We've got five new planters created beside the community hub in the woods to go with the existing four planters. Tidy Clean And Green have just taken on a piece of waste ground in the middle of Camelon and they've put planters and seating in there and some artwork.
[00:19:31] John Hosie: And we have things potentially happening up at Easter Carmuirs Public Park. So there's already been an increase in using green areas for growing projects. And there's another old disused park in Camelon that we're looking to develop as possible allotments.
[00:19:52] John Hosie: So I would hope to be, again, come back in the spring and say the tatties are in. We've got some fruit bushes in, we've got some fruit trees in. There's areas in our community that are perceived to be problematic in terms of antisocial behaviour. At least two of those locations are on our sights to be transformed into some kind of community spaces, and that would include seating planters, trees, fruit bushes, and possibly play facilities.
[00:20:26] John Hosie: I don't think the solution is to put barbed wire around these areas and have turrets with machine guns. I think the idea is much more practical and useful as to transform them into green assets and community facilities. That's maybe a longer term aspiration, but work has already started on that.
[00:20:48] John Hosie: We agreed that the core group who developed a plan would act as a steering group, and we had our first steering group meeting last week. So we will monitor the plan. So each meeting would start with an update, what's happened against the actions in the plan, and that would be shared by everybody who makes up the core group. But I think it would also be a forum for what needs to happen, who needs additional help? Is there funding required or are there resources that we could deploy? Or is it just a case of somebody spending some time to offer some support so they will act as a steering group to drive that plan forward.
[00:21:28] John Hosie: I think maybe it'll meet quarterly. It might be that subgroups could meet, you know, if it's just to look at a specific project. Two or three of the partners could get together rather than the full core group.
[00:21:39] John Hosie: It's an organic plan, and I think it's never a finished plan. There's got to be scope to bring more community groups on board. I think one of the challenges is to bring in the bigger players and the bigger stakeholders. Although the plan took cog niceness of this whilst it was being developed and an awareness that some things were the responsibility of government, both local and national.
[00:22:04] John Hosie: There's other agencies that need to come on board to help us make things happen. And that, I think falls on the local authority, Falkirk Council and Scottish Canals who are a massive player in this area. And I mean, our neighbourhood and the area of climate change, we need to mobilize them in a meaningful way and bring them into that plan so that they can enable things to happen in a way that the community on its own can't. And that is going to be a challenge.
[00:22:38] Kaska Hempel: Maya and Olivia, what would be your message to other young people about getting involved in community climate action?
[00:22:45] Maya Rankin: Just get involved with it. You know, some of the ideas that we've put forward we thought were absolutely crazy, you know, never gonna happen.
[00:22:54] Maya Rankin: And here we are. They have happened. Get involved.
[00:22:56] Olivia McDonald: Definitely. Yeah, just go for it. You know, put forward your ideas. One of our meetings that we went to, we suggested about a toy library, and now there is one for the community to use.
[00:23:09] Kaska Hempel: Find yourself somebody like John.
[00:23:11] Olivia and Maya: Yes, that's true. A good mentor.
[00:23:13] Kaska Hempel: John, when can you clone yourself? What would you say to other communities out there to encourage such planning? Any sort of key tips?
[00:23:23] John Hosie: I think it has to be made relevant. And I think it has become in the last six months, even more relevant. You might even go back to Covid. We did a survey before the Community Climate Action Plan started.
[00:23:38] John Hosie: One of the things that was concerning was that a lot of people didn't see it as a big issue. It didn't affect them, it wasn't relevant to them. It was what middle class hippies got involved in and how is it relevant to us? So I think that was a point of realization that actually this has an immense immediate impact, but people aren't aware of it.
[00:24:00] John Hosie: So we have to make this relevant. We need to make it connected to people's everyday experiences. So, you know, your increased insurance in your house, the increased bad weather and what's happening is a consequence to you and your personal economy. We need to make that connection.
[00:24:19] Kaska Hempel: And one last question. Why do you think communities will make the real difference in making sure that we act on climate change in time?
[00:24:27] Maya Rankin: The more communities that get involved with this journey, we think the more other communities will go, maybe we should do that in our area and maybe we should get involved in something similar to that to help our area as well.
[00:24:42] John Hosie: No, I think it's a belief in bottom up change will come from ordinary people in ordinary situations, but there's no getting away from the fact that others need to buy into this. Communities on their own will not find solutions. Communities are very resilient. They'll find ways of surviving and getting by and putting mitigations into place.
[00:25:05] John Hosie: But to move forward and thrive, there needs to be social structural changes, and we need support to do that. The big players need to come on board. There's a willingness in communities to take things forward. We need that support. We need partnerships, meaningful partnerships. You know, we need to all come to the table without agendas.
[00:25:26] John Hosie: The only agenda should be to work together to bring about lasting positive change.
[00:25:31] Kaska Hempel: So, thank you everybody for joining me for this conversation.
[00:25:34] Olivia and Maya: Yes, thank you for having us.
[00:25:37] Kaska Hempel: I can't help but imagine Camelon and Tamfourhill's green spaces and School gardens bursting into life this spring. And I hope the community centre's energy efficiency is getting sorted as well, along with the multitude of other projects they had in mind.
[00:25:53] Kaska Hempel: I wanted to finish with a couple of more questions for Heather about her tips for community groups, starting with her reflection on what makes for a successful community climate action planning exercise.
[00:26:05] Heather Ashworth: So I would say that our combination of online and in-person planning sessions has helped to make a successful planning exercise for different reasons.
[00:26:15] Heather Ashworth: I should mention that for Camelon and Tamfourhill, we were able to go and be with them in person to run their session. So that was really great. But the online sessions were really good too. Because, like I said, some of those sessions were all the communities were together in them and they said that they got so much out of being able to talk to each other.
[00:26:32] Heather Ashworth: And that was really great to see. I'd also say having an open invite to anyone in the community to join really helps because then everyone feels like they've got a voice. Having a couple of people in the community to lead the process is really important. It's really important to have somebody there who's happy to be taking charge at that point.
[00:26:50] Heather Ashworth: Having meetings with structure, feeding back what they've agreed and checking in with them to see how they're progressing and also what they might need help with. I would also say that we help support a process which groups may have otherwise struggled to resource by themselves in terms of knowing where to start. Gaining buy-in and having a tried and tested methodology as well, that kind of thing. I would say that sort of makes a successful planning exercise.
[00:27:15] Kaska Hempel: You mentioned tools and resources. Do you have any recommendations if a group wanted to do something for themselves? Is there some go-to resource they can just take off the shelf and go with it?
[00:27:31] Heather Ashworth: Then we would definitely recommend the Place Standard Tool as a good starting point. And that's openly available at our place dot Scot. And they've also recently released a new version with a climate lens. I think it would be really useful for communities. The Place Standard Tool is really great for gauging what people want in their communities and what they want to see improved and also what they already like about their communities. I think it's a really great process.
[00:27:53] Heather Ashworth: And I would also just recommend Adaptation Scotland's resources when you're looking at how to make your community more resilient to the impact of climate change. They've got some really great scenarios which suggest ideas that your community could take forward. So yeah, they've got some really interesting resources too. I would recommend those two.
[00:28:09] Kaska Hempel: So, what's next for KSB's work on this?
[00:28:13] Heather Ashworth: So I've already mentioned I think that we've received funding in April this year from the Scottish Government to continue to support our communities that we have already for another year. We have set up a peer-to-peer network for the communities that we work with for the Community Climate Action Plan programme, so then they can support each other and their plans.
[00:28:31] Heather Ashworth: We also set up Q&As with experts in the sector, again to support communities with their climate action. We recently had one on green participatory budgeting, and that was really interesting from personal standpoint, obviously what that was all about. As well as the communities were able to engage and ask questions and just find out a bit more about that process.
[00:28:50] Heather Ashworth: And we also organise one-to-ones with communities, so then they can discuss with us about how we can continue to support them and their ideas and their concerns as well. Just to sort of be there for them and to support them as much as we can.
[00:29:02] Heather Ashworth: Just working through this process the last couple of years, we've become more aware of the need and demand across Scotland's communities for structured support to help local people that understand the local impact and implications of climate change. And identify feasible, but also ambitious climate action they can take.
[00:29:18] Heather Ashworth: Many more communities have been approaching us to run this programme. As I said, we had loads of applications, but also throughout the last year or so, people reach out and ask us more about the process. So at Keep Scotland Beautiful, our aspiration is to continue supporting Scotland's communities to learn and understand their role in combating climate change and protecting the places that they care for.
[00:29:38] Heather Ashworth: So that's what we want to do.
70 episodes
Manage episode 359890032 series 3373769
In today’s episode we continue our story on ins and outs of creating a Community Climate Action Plan, based on Keep Scotland Beautiful’s work over the last couple of years.
Kaska chats to the most recent participant in KSB’s community planning project, a community of Camelon and Tamfourhill, near Falkirk. We hear from John Hosie, Community Safety Engager who brought together the core planning group, and Falkirk High students, Olivia and Maya, with their teacher Lilly who took part in the planning sessions.
Their planning group was a partnership between Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill, Tamfourhill Community Hub, Tidy Clean and Green Group, Forth Valley Sensory Centre, Go Forth and Clyde and Falkirk High School.
We end the story with a few tips and KSB’s future plans from Heather.
Listen to the previous episode for PART 1 of the story with the overview from the KSB’s Heather Ashworth and a conversation with Kate and Christine from Sustainable Kirriemuir, about their experience as one of the communities involved in the project pilot.
Credits
Interview, recording and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Keep Scotland Beautiful. Community Climate Action Plan project: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-change/climate-change/community-climate-action-plans/
Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill https://opcamelontamfourhill.co.uk/
Camelon and Tamfourfill climate action plan https://opcamelontamfourhill.co.uk/community-climate-action-plan-camelon-and-tamfourhill/
The Place Standard Tool (with climate lens) https://www.ourplace.scot/About-Place-Standard
Transcript
[00:00:35] Kaska Hempel: Hello, I'm Kaska Hempel, your Story Weaver for today. And in this episode, we continue with the story on community climate action plans based on the work done with communities by Keep Scotland Beautiful over the last couple of years. Listen to part one to hear the overview from the KSB's Heather Ashworth, and a conversation I had with Kate and Christine from Sustainable Kirriemuir about their experience as one of the communities involved in the project pilot.
[00:01:06] Kaska Hempel: Today, we hear from the community of Camelon and Tamfourhill, near Falkirk, who have just freshly emerged from their planning process. Last autumn, I was joined on Zoom by John Hosie, who brought together the planning group and Falkirk High students, Olivia and Maya and their teacher Lily, who took part in the planning sessions. To start, I ask them to paint us a picture of the area and their community.
[00:01:34] John Hosie: Tamfourhill is an interesting community. It's post-industrial central Scotland. Canal network goes through our area and the Falkirk wheel and the hinter land of that is forest and wooded. But on either side of it, there is areas, significant areas of multiple deprivation. I'm John Hosie, I'm the Community Safety Engager, and I'm employed by the Our Place Camelon And Tamfourhill Project, which is managed by the Tamfourhill Tenants Residence Organisation.
[00:02:09] John Hosie: One of the positive parts of the area is a very strong sense of identity. So somebody from Camelons a Mariner and a Mariner is because of the historic relationship of Camelon to the river and the water. And in more recent history that possibly would be the canal. So, it has a strong sense of place and a strong sense of who it is and what it was.
[00:02:35] John Hosie: The populations around about 7,000, and there's maybe about four distinct neighborhoods within that community making up Camelon and Tamfourhill. The area's quite fortunate in that, although it's urban and generally post-war council, housing stock, there's a lot of green species within the area. And there's the two major canals go through it and where they interchange at the Falkirk wheel.
[00:03:03] John Hosie: So there's significant areas of green open spaces and potentially leisure recreation and environmental potential at all of these locations.
[00:03:16] Olivia McDonald: Yeah. I quite like Dollar Calendar Park. I'm Olivia McDonald and I am a prefect here at Falkirk High School. I feel like Calendar Park is actually quite good because compared to some other places that I go, they're quite good with clearing up the area.
[00:03:32] Olivia McDonald: It's such a nice space for children and people to go on walks and just, you know, enjoy themselves.
[00:03:38] Maya Rankin: I really like the Falkirk wheel. I live quite close to the Falkirk wheel, so I'm about like a 10 minute walk away, so I quite like going there. My name's Maya Rankin. I'm a student here at Falkirk High School with Olivia and I'm 15 years old.
[00:03:52] Maya Rankin: They have bins everywhere. That's one thing I do realise. They've got bins everywhere, especially because the amount of people are tourists that come with picnics and stuff. But it's also like a really good educational area, I would say. It's got a lot of history to it. So it's a really good place for families to go and it's very inclusive.
[00:04:10] Maya Rankin: It's got stuff for everyone. It's got play parks, it's got the water, activities. It's got everything. I really like it there.
[00:04:16] John Hosie: I think that probably the greatest challenge of community needs it is fairly typical of Central Scotland post-industrial. And it faces, there's I think, three data zones within the top 5% in the social index of multiple deprivation.
[00:04:30] John Hosie: Poverty's a real issue. Fuel poverty, food poverty. And you know, that is fairly obvious or blatant in a sense. So these are the challenges the community faces. It's from my perspective, a really vibrant and good place to work. A welcoming community. And I live in a foreign country called Alloa and I was always made to feel absolutely welcome and part of the community since the day I first worked there.
[00:04:57] John Hosie: So that is a strength that has informal support networks. But a lot of work is still required around what I would call community development work. So there isn't a lot of people prepared to form themselves into structured committees or development trusts or vehicles for community action and community change.
[00:05:17] John Hosie: But there's a very positive informal network there. I think the climate crisis underpins a lot of these challenges, and they are exasperated by the existing economic and social challenges within the area.
[00:05:31] Kaska Hempel: How come you got involved in the development of a climate action planning? Where did that come out of?
[00:05:36] John Hosie: Two reasons.
[00:05:37] John Hosie: The community had identified environmental concerns as a priority for community safety. And acknowledgement that the climate emergency is a community safety concern. My argument post in 2020, May 2020 in full lockdown, tasked with having to consult and engage with the community around their priorities for community safety.
[00:06:01] John Hosie: The biggest issue that was identified of greatest concern to the community at that time, and by far the biggest concern by a long way was littering. Fly tipping. The state of open green spaces, the amount of detritus that was lying around the community. Although there were other concerns there related to drug use and addiction, and there were concerns around things that won't surprise you around antisocial behaviour.
[00:06:30] John Hosie: The environmental concerns outshone everything else. So a response was needed to that. A community-based response. And we did a number of things. We launched a campaign to keep Camelon and Tamfourhill tidy clean and green. We were able to mobilize some volunteers and we got about the whole process of tidying up, cleaning up, and greening our community.
[00:06:51] John Hosie: Young people in particular were getting involved in canal clear up work, clearing the water, clearing the tow path. There was a lot that was about community cohesion, but also reconnecting the community with the canal. So it was connected to the community's industrial past, but it had become an area that was more perceived to be a bit antisocial behaviour of risk taking and unsafe.
[00:07:16] John Hosie: So the clearing up of that canal reconnected the community with the canal. So there was that strand that was going on. The other issues, the whole cost of living crisis and energy crisis was impacting on a community that was already facing economic and social challenges. So one particular very strong strand was the Tamfourhill Community Hub who sat on the core group to develop this plan.
[00:07:46] John Hosie: They were going through asset transfer of their building from the council into community ownership. And the gas and electric bills are absolutely not sustainable. The bills are going through the roof. You know, we're looking at 30,000 pounds a year to heat and light a building. That's a salary of a worker.
[00:08:06] John Hosie: That's a lot of provision in terms of youth work or adult work or community development work. It's a massive amount of money to a small charity and you know, we can talk about community safety in any kind of context, but if you don't have a community hub for the community to come together, then it's going to be to the detriment of community safety and community cohesion.
[00:08:28] John Hosie: That building's existence has become existential. If we don't find ways of being more efficient with energy, if we don't find alternative energy sources. The building's future is very unclear. Other groups there were piecemeal and disjointed. We were involved with community growing activities and there was some litter picking going on and there was other pockets of activities.
[00:08:52] John Hosie: So bringing these priority issues together and bringing the different groups engaged with these activities together to form a coherent community climate action plan seemed a very logical thing to do, a necessary thing to do. So my role was really kind of as an enabler and facilitator of that initial core group and setting that agenda.
[00:09:12] Lilly: My name is Lilly and I'm a high school music teacher at Falkirk High School. But I'm also doing an acting PT job in wider community and parental engagement. So as part of that, I make quite a lot of contact with John and have kind of been involved in things like taking the pupils out on litter picks and canal clear ups with them.
[00:09:30] Lilly: And as part of that, it's kind of continued on into being part of the community climate action plan. And then I went to a group of pupils in our school. So we have what we call pupil junior management team, which Olivia and Maya are a part of, or were a part of, should I say. Last year. They're in S4 now. But last year I took groups of children with me along to meetings with John and the rest of the team, and Olivia and Maya were at quite a lot of those.
[00:09:53] Olivia McDonald: We started to go on litter picks with Changemakers, which is another team here that, you know, do a lot of things for the environment. And basically, seeing all rubbish everywhere. It sort of made me feel, you know, disappointed and realised how important it is.
[00:10:11] Lilly: As a school we're in the process of kind of working towards our green award.
[00:10:16] Lilly: And so Olivia was talking about the Changemakers group there, and that is, that's our kind of eco group in school. I think just taking the pupils out and actually seeing what damage littering particularly is doing to the community is just quite eye-opening and is an area as a school that we are really focusing on is our litter strategy.
[00:10:35] Lilly: Because we are aware that, you know, littering happens and it's not always just our school pupils. We do know that. But they, you know, they can be a focus sometimes, which is unfortunate. We've also, as a school, we've been trying to put together or we have put together to say...
[00:10:49] Olivia McDonald: The community charter.
[00:10:51] Lilly: Community charter, yeah. Do you want to maybe talk a bit about what that is, Olivia?
[00:10:54] Olivia McDonald: So it's our charter and it's basically about how we can help the environment and what the school could do and what the pupils could do when they're going out for lunch or just how they could be respectful towards local businesses and the environment.
[00:11:10] Olivia McDonald: And we went around during our litter picks actually. To ask some shop owners or local businesses around the area to put up the charter, the posters for it. And, you know, they were very open to doing it and it was good.
[00:11:26] Lilly: So I think our litter strategy at Falkirk High is a big focus this year.
[00:11:29] Lilly: And being part of the Community Climate Action plan is helping us to make an improvement in the community.
[00:11:35] John Hosie: I mean the core group that have taken the plan forward, it's absolutely essential that the young people were involved. And I can only thank the school so much for giving so much commitment to this
[00:11:46] John Hosie: And the school. It doesn't just serve Camelon and Tamfourhill. Falkirk High is what it says, it's Falkirk. But they are a really important part of our community. But the other groups that took part in the core group, the Forth Valley Sensory Centre. They too, by their name. They have a remit that covers more than just our local community.
[00:12:05] John Hosie: And they were another organisation that are an asset to our community, but haven't always been integrated with neighborhood-based work. And they came on board with us and that was really important as well. And working closely in partnership with our Tidy Clean And Green Community Group, which is a resident led group along with the two Tamfourhill organisations.
[00:12:25] John Hosie: So the bringing together of these groups was an important part of this process as well.
[00:12:31] Kaska Hempel: So what was the actual process and when did it happen, and what did it involve for you as a community?
[00:12:38] John Hosie: I can't remember when we actually sat down and started the process. It must have been around about May last year.
[00:12:46] John Hosie: So I put in an initial proposal to Keep Scotland Beautiful, to ask them for support, to facilitate the process. And that came about at a good time because there were some resources available through the Community Renewal fund and a consortium of organisations of which I was also involved in had some resources at the time.
[00:13:08] John Hosie: So that married up quite nicely. The proposal to do the plan and there being some resources to make it happen. So that's where Heather became involved.
[00:13:18] Lilly: One of the main starting points was thinking about what we already do. So, you know, we play a part as a school in the community, and it was kind of thinking about what do we actually do already to give back to the community.
[00:13:30] Lilly: You know, we do food bank donation appeal around about Christmas time. As I was speaking about, the Changemakers group that we already have. And then, you know, the other kinda of involvement with litter picks and things. And then coming along to those meetings was about talking to all the other groups, what they're doing and then seeing, you know, are there any links?
[00:13:49] Lilly: What are priorities as a whole group? What are your individual priorities? And it kinda came together through that way I would say.
[00:13:55] Kaska Hempel: So truly collaborative process. It's wonderful to see. How was it working with adults?
[00:14:00] Olivia McDonald: It's actually really good. They've been really helpful and very inspiring.
[00:14:05] Maya Rankin: They have more knowledge than we do. I'll say that. We're, you know, coming into this. I'm gonna be honest, we were a bit clueless about it. But having John and his team working with us, it's been a real game changer for us.
[00:14:16] Kaska Hempel: So I just wanted to ask you, how did it feel being involved in this as a young person?
[00:14:21] Kaska Hempel: Community action can be seen as sort of adults realm and tackling really big issues.
[00:14:26] Olivia McDonald: It felt well, very achieving. Like we've achieved a lot.
[00:14:32] Maya Rankin: And especially, you know, we've came up with new ideas that we had in the back of our heads and we thought would never be able to be, you know, kind of made by us, if you would. But the fact that we have makes us not only as in ourselves but as pupils and prefects and members of Falkirk High and members of our own community.
[00:14:51] Maya Rankin: It makes us feel very grateful that we're able to do this.
[00:14:53] Olivia McDonald: Very proud as well. I mean, it's all going towards, you know, well, our future, everybody's future.
[00:15:00] Kaska Hempel: How was it working with young people on this project?
[00:15:03] Lilly: I think it's great to have a kind of different outlook on things. There's lots of things that the pupils would say or suggest that I wouldn't have particularly thought of.
[00:15:13] Lilly: You know, all the pupils that we had along, they enjoy speaking about things and their confident skills were kind of growing as each meeting happened. So yeah, I found it great working with them.
[00:15:22] John Hosie: My background is youth work, so I didn't need any convincing that young people were the key to this in many ways, I don't want to sound over dramatic, but this is an existential issue.
[00:15:37] John Hosie: If the planet is to continue and we're to enjoy quality of life, then action is required. The time the full impact of this is realised, I probably won't be here, but the generation behind me will. So they need to be empowered to take control of this in as much way as they can without our guidance. And I think, you know, young people have demonstrated their willingness and ability to do that.
[00:16:05] John Hosie: So I don't think it's an option. I think it's necessary. I mean, I use the strap line often young people have the solution, not the problem. And we need to invest in that. And Maya and Olivia are excellent examples of that young people will really require and need their enthusiasm and insight. You've got to remember when you get to my age and people become quite cynical about things and things can't change and that still frustrates me because things can change. Things must change. And young people have the energy, enthusiasm, and just the ability to do that.
[00:16:42] Kaska Hempel: I was going to ask you about any community actions that you identified as something that might go ahead or is going ahead.
[00:16:52] Olivia McDonald: During meetings, we've talked about food education and how to cook well seasonally and how, you know, it's important for young people to learn more about how to, you know, make decent meals on a budget. Just really realistic things. But also how to do it with helping the environment, recycling, eating seasonally, and also eating maybe your own homegrown veg.
[00:17:19] Maya Rankin: One of our old captains for P G M T was really passionate about starting up a gardening club or something to do with gardening within our school community.
[00:17:28] Maya Rankin: Which we have done. We're currently growing potatoes, I think, and our garden out the back. But we've got some teachers also putting in extra time and work and helping out with that. And we've got loads of pupils who are very passionate about seeing what they eat. I'm sure we've used a few of the potatoes that are growing now in home ec.
[00:17:45] Maya Rankin: So it is a really good garden. Obviously we're not growing much right now because of the weather, but we're hoping to start growing a lot more come the season next year. And use a lot of it, not only in our home ec kitchens, but hopefully also in our canteen kitchens as well.
[00:18:00] John Hosie: The big priority at Tamfourhill is energy efficiency. We now have a more detailed plan of action to look at our energy efficiency audit of the Tamfourhill Community Hub. So that will partly be to look at alternative energy sources like solar heat pumps and so on. But it'll also look at how within the existing structures, as are things that we can do. Better insulation, windows, heating systems. Do we need the whole heating system on all of the time in all of the rooms?
[00:18:36] John Hosie: So we have a process now in place that will start with an energy efficiency audit of the building. From that, we will come up with proposals about what needs to happen to improve that situation, and I think that will probably involve some kind of grant submission to one of the funds. Scottish Government funds.
[00:18:57] John Hosie: It was maybe a medium term action. It's now a short term action. We need to see results and we'd hope to come back at this time next year and say we're in the process of installing heat pumps. We're in the process of putting solar panels on the roof. Going back to the community growing. We've got five new planters created beside the community hub in the woods to go with the existing four planters. Tidy Clean And Green have just taken on a piece of waste ground in the middle of Camelon and they've put planters and seating in there and some artwork.
[00:19:31] John Hosie: And we have things potentially happening up at Easter Carmuirs Public Park. So there's already been an increase in using green areas for growing projects. And there's another old disused park in Camelon that we're looking to develop as possible allotments.
[00:19:52] John Hosie: So I would hope to be, again, come back in the spring and say the tatties are in. We've got some fruit bushes in, we've got some fruit trees in. There's areas in our community that are perceived to be problematic in terms of antisocial behaviour. At least two of those locations are on our sights to be transformed into some kind of community spaces, and that would include seating planters, trees, fruit bushes, and possibly play facilities.
[00:20:26] John Hosie: I don't think the solution is to put barbed wire around these areas and have turrets with machine guns. I think the idea is much more practical and useful as to transform them into green assets and community facilities. That's maybe a longer term aspiration, but work has already started on that.
[00:20:48] John Hosie: We agreed that the core group who developed a plan would act as a steering group, and we had our first steering group meeting last week. So we will monitor the plan. So each meeting would start with an update, what's happened against the actions in the plan, and that would be shared by everybody who makes up the core group. But I think it would also be a forum for what needs to happen, who needs additional help? Is there funding required or are there resources that we could deploy? Or is it just a case of somebody spending some time to offer some support so they will act as a steering group to drive that plan forward.
[00:21:28] John Hosie: I think maybe it'll meet quarterly. It might be that subgroups could meet, you know, if it's just to look at a specific project. Two or three of the partners could get together rather than the full core group.
[00:21:39] John Hosie: It's an organic plan, and I think it's never a finished plan. There's got to be scope to bring more community groups on board. I think one of the challenges is to bring in the bigger players and the bigger stakeholders. Although the plan took cog niceness of this whilst it was being developed and an awareness that some things were the responsibility of government, both local and national.
[00:22:04] John Hosie: There's other agencies that need to come on board to help us make things happen. And that, I think falls on the local authority, Falkirk Council and Scottish Canals who are a massive player in this area. And I mean, our neighbourhood and the area of climate change, we need to mobilize them in a meaningful way and bring them into that plan so that they can enable things to happen in a way that the community on its own can't. And that is going to be a challenge.
[00:22:38] Kaska Hempel: Maya and Olivia, what would be your message to other young people about getting involved in community climate action?
[00:22:45] Maya Rankin: Just get involved with it. You know, some of the ideas that we've put forward we thought were absolutely crazy, you know, never gonna happen.
[00:22:54] Maya Rankin: And here we are. They have happened. Get involved.
[00:22:56] Olivia McDonald: Definitely. Yeah, just go for it. You know, put forward your ideas. One of our meetings that we went to, we suggested about a toy library, and now there is one for the community to use.
[00:23:09] Kaska Hempel: Find yourself somebody like John.
[00:23:11] Olivia and Maya: Yes, that's true. A good mentor.
[00:23:13] Kaska Hempel: John, when can you clone yourself? What would you say to other communities out there to encourage such planning? Any sort of key tips?
[00:23:23] John Hosie: I think it has to be made relevant. And I think it has become in the last six months, even more relevant. You might even go back to Covid. We did a survey before the Community Climate Action Plan started.
[00:23:38] John Hosie: One of the things that was concerning was that a lot of people didn't see it as a big issue. It didn't affect them, it wasn't relevant to them. It was what middle class hippies got involved in and how is it relevant to us? So I think that was a point of realization that actually this has an immense immediate impact, but people aren't aware of it.
[00:24:00] John Hosie: So we have to make this relevant. We need to make it connected to people's everyday experiences. So, you know, your increased insurance in your house, the increased bad weather and what's happening is a consequence to you and your personal economy. We need to make that connection.
[00:24:19] Kaska Hempel: And one last question. Why do you think communities will make the real difference in making sure that we act on climate change in time?
[00:24:27] Maya Rankin: The more communities that get involved with this journey, we think the more other communities will go, maybe we should do that in our area and maybe we should get involved in something similar to that to help our area as well.
[00:24:42] John Hosie: No, I think it's a belief in bottom up change will come from ordinary people in ordinary situations, but there's no getting away from the fact that others need to buy into this. Communities on their own will not find solutions. Communities are very resilient. They'll find ways of surviving and getting by and putting mitigations into place.
[00:25:05] John Hosie: But to move forward and thrive, there needs to be social structural changes, and we need support to do that. The big players need to come on board. There's a willingness in communities to take things forward. We need that support. We need partnerships, meaningful partnerships. You know, we need to all come to the table without agendas.
[00:25:26] John Hosie: The only agenda should be to work together to bring about lasting positive change.
[00:25:31] Kaska Hempel: So, thank you everybody for joining me for this conversation.
[00:25:34] Olivia and Maya: Yes, thank you for having us.
[00:25:37] Kaska Hempel: I can't help but imagine Camelon and Tamfourhill's green spaces and School gardens bursting into life this spring. And I hope the community centre's energy efficiency is getting sorted as well, along with the multitude of other projects they had in mind.
[00:25:53] Kaska Hempel: I wanted to finish with a couple of more questions for Heather about her tips for community groups, starting with her reflection on what makes for a successful community climate action planning exercise.
[00:26:05] Heather Ashworth: So I would say that our combination of online and in-person planning sessions has helped to make a successful planning exercise for different reasons.
[00:26:15] Heather Ashworth: I should mention that for Camelon and Tamfourhill, we were able to go and be with them in person to run their session. So that was really great. But the online sessions were really good too. Because, like I said, some of those sessions were all the communities were together in them and they said that they got so much out of being able to talk to each other.
[00:26:32] Heather Ashworth: And that was really great to see. I'd also say having an open invite to anyone in the community to join really helps because then everyone feels like they've got a voice. Having a couple of people in the community to lead the process is really important. It's really important to have somebody there who's happy to be taking charge at that point.
[00:26:50] Heather Ashworth: Having meetings with structure, feeding back what they've agreed and checking in with them to see how they're progressing and also what they might need help with. I would also say that we help support a process which groups may have otherwise struggled to resource by themselves in terms of knowing where to start. Gaining buy-in and having a tried and tested methodology as well, that kind of thing. I would say that sort of makes a successful planning exercise.
[00:27:15] Kaska Hempel: You mentioned tools and resources. Do you have any recommendations if a group wanted to do something for themselves? Is there some go-to resource they can just take off the shelf and go with it?
[00:27:31] Heather Ashworth: Then we would definitely recommend the Place Standard Tool as a good starting point. And that's openly available at our place dot Scot. And they've also recently released a new version with a climate lens. I think it would be really useful for communities. The Place Standard Tool is really great for gauging what people want in their communities and what they want to see improved and also what they already like about their communities. I think it's a really great process.
[00:27:53] Heather Ashworth: And I would also just recommend Adaptation Scotland's resources when you're looking at how to make your community more resilient to the impact of climate change. They've got some really great scenarios which suggest ideas that your community could take forward. So yeah, they've got some really interesting resources too. I would recommend those two.
[00:28:09] Kaska Hempel: So, what's next for KSB's work on this?
[00:28:13] Heather Ashworth: So I've already mentioned I think that we've received funding in April this year from the Scottish Government to continue to support our communities that we have already for another year. We have set up a peer-to-peer network for the communities that we work with for the Community Climate Action Plan programme, so then they can support each other and their plans.
[00:28:31] Heather Ashworth: We also set up Q&As with experts in the sector, again to support communities with their climate action. We recently had one on green participatory budgeting, and that was really interesting from personal standpoint, obviously what that was all about. As well as the communities were able to engage and ask questions and just find out a bit more about that process.
[00:28:50] Heather Ashworth: And we also organise one-to-ones with communities, so then they can discuss with us about how we can continue to support them and their ideas and their concerns as well. Just to sort of be there for them and to support them as much as we can.
[00:29:02] Heather Ashworth: Just working through this process the last couple of years, we've become more aware of the need and demand across Scotland's communities for structured support to help local people that understand the local impact and implications of climate change. And identify feasible, but also ambitious climate action they can take.
[00:29:18] Heather Ashworth: Many more communities have been approaching us to run this programme. As I said, we had loads of applications, but also throughout the last year or so, people reach out and ask us more about the process. So at Keep Scotland Beautiful, our aspiration is to continue supporting Scotland's communities to learn and understand their role in combating climate change and protecting the places that they care for.
[00:29:38] Heather Ashworth: So that's what we want to do.
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