Community-led Stalled Spaces - Glasgow

The Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Housing Association launched the Stalled Spaces community-based agreement in 2011 to address long-term issues of stalled development and abandoned land in Glasgow, Scotland. The instrument provides short-team leases and professional advice to voluntary community groups to create innovative projects such as pop-up gardens, natural play spaces, wildlife areas, urban growing spaces, and art sculpture parks over a temporary basis prior to development. Stalled Spaces has been widely perceived as successful, receiving the 2013 City to City Barcelona Fostering Arts and Design Award. Consequently, the program has continued past its original final funding date in 2017. Furthermore, due to the program's success, Architecture & Design Scotland, a Scottish non-departmental public body, has replicated the program at a Scotland-wide level.

Overview

Type of instrument:

Agreement-based or cooperative instrument›Community-based agreement with the support of the government

Challenges addressed

Green space management (e.g. accessibility)
Social cohesion
Social equity
Human health, comfort and well-being

Consideration of nature-based solutions:

The instrument aims to create man-made, re-natured spaces to help reduce the urban heat-island effect and improve rainwater infiltration. These can include, for example, innovative projects such as pop-up gardens, natural play spaces, wildlife areas, urban growing spaces, and art sculpture parks over a temporary basis prior to a space being developed.

Targeted (peri-)urban areas:

Parks and (semi)natural urban green areas

Allotments, community gardens or agricultural areas

Urban green space connected to grey infrastructure

Good practice characteristics:

Locally appropriate

Potential to be replicated / upscaled

Innovative

Inclusivity

Governance

Government body/bodies

Initiating body:

Glasgow City Council

Instrument design:

Details about how the instrument was designed:

The Glasgow City Council partnered with Glasgow Housing Association, a non-for-profit organisation, to design the instrument through a horizontal collaboration to respond to urban decay and stagnation in Glasgow. The initiative was in response to a motion brought to the City Council to re-green empty parts of the city.

Involvement of non-governmental actors:

Citizens or community groups / NGOs

Type of actor involvement:

Unknown

Instrument implementation:

Type of involvement:

Citizens identify unused vacant land, submit applications to the funding scheme, and then receive permission from the City Council and Housing Association to realize their small scale projects.

Type of non-governmental actors involved:

Citizen councils or consultation for co-planning (e.g. workshops, surveys)

Targeted actors:

Citizens or community groups (CBOs), NGOs

Financing

Sources of funding:

Public local authority’s budget

Budget:

100 000 € 500 000€

Details about instrument financing:

In total, the project has a budget of approximately €600,000 (£500.000=. From 2011 until 2017, the project received around €60,000 (£50.000) each year from the Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Housing Association to permit local groups or organizations to apply for grants between approximately €1200-€5000 (£1.000-4.500) to be used in vacant areas that have been set aside for development, with 125 recipients as of November 2020.

Monitoring, evaluation and impacts

Is a monitoring framework in place?:

Achieved outcomes and impacts:

Stalled Spaces delivered more than 100 projects that have transformed 25 hectares of vacant land or underutilized open sites into land for temporary community uses. The program has been successful in providing environmental benefits and services to undeserved communities as well as enabling a better connection to the local environments.

Success factors and lessons learned:

A key element of success is the active engagement of community groups and a feeling of empowerment among participants. Although the City Council and Housing Association originally planned to fund the program until 2017, the program has persisted due to its success, continuing to receive funding from additional sources. Furthermore, Architecture & Design Scotland, a non-departmental public body, launched a similar Scotland-wide Stalled Spaces program with funding from the Scottish Government's Urban Regeneration Fund and Commonwealth Games Legacy Fund. Political and financial support were crucial to the realization of the program. However, it is important to think about how the program can provide the framework to finance permanent projects as opposed to only temporary ones.

Sources and further information

References

List of references:

City Council of Glasgow. (2020). “Stalled Spaces.” Available at: https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/stalledspaces (Accessed: 21 July 2022).

Mallah, A. (2018). “Why the ‘Greening’ of Vacant Land Is a Smart Long-Term Investment in Cities”. Nextcity. Available at: https:// nextcity.org/features/view/why-the-greening-of-vacant-land-is-a-smart-long-term-investment-in-cities (Accessed: 21 July 2022).

Sandelands, Drew. (2020). “Glasgow City center injects life into abandoned spaces with cash boost”. Glasgow Evening Times.

Oscilowicz E., Lewartkowska E., Levitch A., Luger J., Hajtmarova S., O'Neill E., Carbonell P., Cole H., Blanco C., Monroe E. (2021). "Policy and Planning Tools for Urban Green Justice - Fighting displacement and gentrification and improving accessibility and inclusiveness to green amenities ". BCNUEJ.

Yates, Gregor. (2015). “Assessing the Individual and Community Impacts of Stalled Spaces-Funded Projects in Glasgow.” Available at: https://www.gcph.co.uk/assets/0000/5404/Stalled_Spaces_Final.pdf (Accessed: 21 July 2022).

Architecture & Design Scotland. (2017). "From eyesores to empowered spaces: getting Stalled Spaces off the ground." Available at: https://www.ads.org.uk/blog/stalled-spaces-background (Accessed: 21 July 2022).

BBC News. (2013). "Glasgow Stalled Spaces scheme wins international award." Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-22798662 (Accessed: 21 July 2022).

Photos

@Connecting Nature