The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S6M-16094, in the name of Bob Doris, on celebrating 50 years of Summerston. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament congratulates the community of Summerston, in the Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn constituency, on reaching the significant milestone of having been established for 50 years; understands that the first residents settled in the area from late 1974; believes that, in the years that followed, they witnessed a strong, close knit and civically-minded community develop; recognises the contribution of all those who have been involved in building Summerston’s community spirit over the decades, none more so than Billy Souter who sadly passed away this year; commends the Summerston Community and Environmental Group (SCEG) on its efforts to both improve the area’s environment and celebrate the five decades of Summerston as a community; acknowledges the work of SCEG in, it believes, it being “hands on” in its efforts to enhance the local area; notes that a community action plan was developed by SCEG following a major community consultation to help further improve the area; believes that a successful, piper-led, winter lantern parade, supported by Summerston schoolchildren and the wider community took place on the 27 November 2024 to mark the 50th anniversary, which kickstarted a number of events planned over the next 12 months; considers that constructive community activism and participation is a key component in helping communities such as Summerston prosper; supports the coming year’s activities, and wishes the people of Summerston every success on the area continuing to thrive for the next 50 years and beyond.
17:11
I thank all the MSPs who have supported my motion, allowing it to be debated in the Scottish Parliament. I also thank the Summerston residents who have joined us in the public gallery for the debate. They are members and volunteers of the Summerston Community and Environmental Group.
Today’s motion celebrates the community of Summerston reaching its 50th year. In particular, it celebrates the efforts of the amazing Summerston Community and Environmental Group to improve and enhance the local environment and to develop and promote a positive civic pride in Summerston.
Summerston has been my home for the past 13 years. It is the only home that my two children, who are nine and four respectively, have ever known, and we are very lucky to stay there. There are three excellent local primary schools: Caldercuilt, Parkview and St Blane’s, which my nine-year-old son attends. John Paul academy is a local secondary school that offers so many opportunities for young people locally and beyond.
I want to begin by speaking about Mrs Fowler, a lady whom I never had the privilege to meet and who has long since passed away. Wilma Mather, who is here this afternoon and was instrumental in establishing SCEG a few years ago, told me about Mrs Fowler. Wilma said that she did everything to help people and was always willing to help to sort out local issues. If someone passed away, Mrs Fowler made sure that they got a good send-off.
Official records do not always capture the rich social histories of communities such as Summerston and the people who make those communities so special. I suspect that, over Summerston’s five decades, there were a few Mrs Fowlers who did so much to knit a new community together as it grew and expanded from the first housing developments in the area, including housing co-operatives in Westfield and Invershiel. I know that the Summerston Community and Environmental Group would welcome a social history project to celebrate and recognise the often untold and unwritten history of the community, which can quickly be lost over time if it is not written down and recorded.
However, today’s debate is about celebrating our current crop of community champions. I want to name some of them—Wilma and Sharon Mather, Jean Wilson, Simon Baxter, George and Helen Carnochan, Vicky Dewar, Janice Ross, Pierre Parrier, Angela Smith, Sam Allwood and Scott Milligan. I thank every one of them for what they and others do.
There is one name that is missing from that list but is specifically mentioned in my motion, and that is Billy Souter. Sadly, Billy passed away a few months ago. Billy was the beating heart of Summerston—he was absolutely committed to the Summerston Community and Environmental Group, because he was absolutely committed to Summerston.
Everyone knew Billy. He volunteered for years at John Paul academy, and he was a one-man environmental improvement team—always driven, always energetic and always committed to the Summerston community. I suspect that we all know Billys in the communities that we all represent across Scotland: people just like him, who should be celebrated. His loss is felt keenly by many, and, fittingly, there will soon be a memorial bench in his honour.
I want to comment on the work of the Summerston Community and Environmental Group in a very particular way. The group is well aware of some of the environmental challenges that Summerston faces. As it should, it challenges local elected representatives to improve the local area. However, SCEG also asks what it can do to assist in improving the local area.
It will not surprise many to learn that, with three primary schools, a secondary school and a retail park with various takeaways and a large supermarket in the area, litter has become a significant challenge. In its efforts to tackle that, the group has done all that it can to ensure that local cleansing services respond timeously and as often as possible, but it also organises regular large-scale pick-ups.
SCEG also thinks strategically. As the Summerston retail park is a particular challenge in relation to environmental issues, we are, together, seeking a meeting with owners of the commercial units and the businesses that operate from them to identify sustainable and long-lasting improvements. We hope that that meeting will be scheduled soon.
There are other visible signs of SCEG’s work. The Summerston in bloom project has been a major success, with large community planters now positioned at various locations across Summerston, improving the local environment—they look absolutely stunning in full bloom. To bring the local community together, there are now regular Easter and Christmas fairs and summer gala days. For a while, it was not always so. The fact that the community now anticipates, expects and looks forward to such events is testament to SCEG’s success.
The Summerston Community and Environmental Group has given particular attention to ensuring that the Summerston at 50 anniversary is appropriately marked and celebrated. Those celebrations kicked off late last year with a winter lantern parade, in which many children from local schools paraded around Summerston, led by a piper. It was a poignant and special event.
The celebrations will culminate on 30 August with a community festival in the grounds of John Paul academy. Local schools will be heavily involved, and there will be musical performances, sporting events, many activities and good food. It will also be a multicultural event, celebrating Summerston in its rich and diverse entirety. I certainly look forward to attending.
In my remaining time, I will say a little about SCEG’s formation. When the irrepressible Wilma Mather attended my drop-in advice surgery in Ledgowan hall in Maryhill a few years ago, she was focused—my goodness, she was focused—on improving Summerston. Her actions, and the actions of other community volunteers, following that meeting—actions that I, in some small way, sought to support—led to SCEG’s formation.
I knew that something special was happening when hundreds of people attended a community consultation event that we jointly organised locally. The views that were gathered from the community were used to inform the actions, always community led, that the Summerston Community and Environmental Group would take forward.
SCEG has two big ambitions for Summerston. I am sorry—that is not true; it has many big ambitions for Summerston, but I will mention just two. SCEG wants to see improvements to the quality of core paths, both those within Summerston and those that connect it to other local communities such as Cadder and Acre. It also wishes to see a large open and grassy area near St Blane’s primary school become a high-quality and welcoming community amenity—a landscape in that area right at the heart of Summerston. Given SCEG’s constructive and can-do attitude, I suspect that we will see progress sooner rather than later.
I wanted to put on the public record in Scotland’s Parliament the ambitions and successes of some of the current crop of community activists in Summerston. In 50 years’ time, when a future generation of people in Summerston look to celebrate 100 years, they can look back with pride and admiration for those who went before. Such proud social histories should be recorded, and the dedication of community volunteers past and present should be recognised and celebrated.
I finish by offering my heartfelt thanks not only to the Summerston Community and Environmental Group for all that it does but to all the volunteers whose efforts have made Summerston a better place to live over the past 50 years.
17:20
I congratulate Bob Doris on securing the debate, and I am pleased to speak in support of the motion. I also congratulate the community of Summerston on reaching its 50th anniversary. That is a remarkable milestone that speaks not only to the resilience of the people who have, over the decades, made Summerston their home—as Bob Doris has—but to the power of strong grass-roots community building.
In 1974, Summerston welcomed its first residents as part of Glasgow’s wider response to housing needs. What was notable was not just the physical development but the social fabric that quickly grew from it. In the half century since, Summerston has become the embodiment of what a successful housing estate can look like: civic minded, environmentally aware and, above all, community driven. I was delighted to be invited by teachers at John Paul academy to speak to a modern studies class last year. As ever on such occasions, I was very pleased to hear from the younger generation and to answer their questions.
Another well-regarded facility in the Summerston community is the Glasgow Riding for the Disabled Association’s centre, which is based at Caldercuilt Road. Every year, hundreds of children and adults living with disabilities learn to ride and enjoy the benefits of equine therapy.
I also pay tribute to Billy Souter, who is mentioned in the motion. His passing is a real loss to the community. From what I have read and heard, he was central to the life of the community and his legacy lives on in the vibrancy of the neighbourhood today.
The work of the Summerston Community and Environmental Group has been exceptional. Not only has the group led real, practical improvements to the area; it has done so in a way that brings people together. The 50th anniversary lantern parade, which was led by a piper and involved local schoolchildren, was more than a celebration; it was a statement of unity and a demonstration of the pride that people feel in where they live.
We should not take that success for granted. Over the decades, Glasgow has seen many large-scale housing projects, some of which, unfortunately, did not foster the same sense of stability or identity. We have only to think of places such as the Red Road flats, which have now been demolished, or the long struggle to regenerate parts of Sighthill and the Gorbals. Despite good intentions, those developments lacked the sustainable approach to community planning that Summerston seems to have had from the outset.
Now, as Scotland continues to face a housing crisis, there is an urgent need for both planners and politicians to ask the right questions. How do we build not just houses but homes? How do we create places where people not only live but thrive? In Summerston, we have a working model of what can be achieved when community is treated not as an afterthought but as a central pillar. We need more Summerstons—developments with green space and primary schools like St Blane’s, Parkview and Caldercuilt at their heart. We need real local engagement and active community groups that help to bind people together.
Although this is a moment to look back and celebrate 50 years of progress, it is also a time to look forward. I support the energy and dedication of those in Summerston who continue to build something better, and I hope that, in 50 years’ time, people across Scotland will be looking at many more communities with stories like this one.
17:23
I thank Bob Doris for bringing the debate to the chamber and sharing his very positive thoughts about his community, and I pay tribute to his passion for that local area. It is wonderful to hear about all that the people of Summerston have achieved, directly from their MSP, and it is clear that they have his respect as well as his support.
Bob Doris’s motion highlights
“that constructive community activism and participation is a key component in helping communities such as Summerston prosper”.
I believe that that is true, and I have seen it in many of the areas that I represent, as well.
This summer, I am looking forward to my usual packed surgery schedule and to catching up with communities that are leading in participation. From the likes of Eigg and Knoydart, which continue to demonstrate the value of community ownership as well as participation, to development trusts around the whole region that are taking control on tackling local issues by building homes, starting energy developments and identifying opportunities to take on empty buildings or vacant plots of land, there are countless examples of communities getting it right.
Team Hamish in Nairn took the tragic loss of young Hamish and his mother and has ensured that Nairn and the wider area will never forget that family. I have enjoyed and taken joy in seeing others enjoy phase 2 of the vision for Nairn every time that I am in the town—I have seen kids play and eat their ice creams as parents and guardians watch on from nearby seating.
At last week’s opening of the new Whin park, city leader Councillor Ian Brown highlighted that the renovations were the result of collaboration not just with the council and its partners but with people in the community, including children and young people, who took part in the design process. That is fantastic not only because it means that the end result is one that young people actually want but because I am sure that taking part in that process now will make it more likely that those young people will use their voices in future, speaking up and becoming people with a real stake in and passion for their community.
Where I live in Merkinch, the local nature reserve has been protected and enhanced by community activists such as Dell McClurg and Caroline Snow. I know that many local people were instrumental in clearing rubbish, planting trees and advocating preservation, and it has always been my pleasure to join them in litter picks, at meetings with the council and at events for nearby residents. It is hard to picture what the area would be like without the Friends of Merkinch Local Nature Reserve. Again, the local primary school plays a part—children have designed the benches that sit along the paths through the reserve.
Bob Doris recognised the wide impact that volunteers and regular community events can have in lifting spirits and encouraging people to feel a real connection and duty to their local area. That is incredibly important—when people do not feel a part of things, they are less likely to look after what they have and build it better.
I am looking forward to joining the Kessock ferry swim next month, and I hope to see many of our local activists, volunteers and leaders there, as well.
Once again, I thank Bob Doris for sharing the successes of Summerston, and I hope to hear that the community continues to experience the benefits of the work that has been done up until now and builds on it.
17:27
I thank Bob Doris, who is one of my colleagues from the Glasgow area, for bringing the motion to the chamber. It is my honour and privilege to be a member of the Scottish Parliament for the Glasgow region and, in particular, to represent the area that we are discussing today, Summerston.
I echo Bob Doris’s commendations of the Summerston Community and Environmental Group for its tireless efforts in raising awareness of the support and opportunities in the area; in ensuring that Summerston is a clean and vibrant place in which to live; and in organising events that bring the community together. The group is organising more than 30 activities in the area to mark 50 years of Summerston, and it will engage with 500 residents during the 12 months of the anniversary. I am sure that it will get a fantastic turnout of local residents at all the events, not least because of our mentioning its work in the nation’s Parliament today.
Summerston is full of people who work hard to make the community and Glasgow a better place to live in. One such person is Ryan Rooney, one of the community champions at the Summerston Asda store, who is a key link between the store and causes that matter to local residents. Another example is the volunteers who run Summerston Youth Football Club, making sure that grass-roots football is available for the children and young people of Summerston, which gives them a positive experience of sport that will stay with them for life.
I also want to highlight the teachers, parents and pupils at the local schools—John Paul academy, Parkview primary school and St Blane’s primary school—as well as everyone who is involved in supporting and running Bellcraig community centre for their role in keeping it a vital part of Summerston over the past 40-plus years.
As well as celebrating the past 50 years of Summerston, I, too, am asking that members consider the next 50 years. It is our duty as parliamentarians—one that I know that we all take very seriously—to ensure that communities thrive. What does that mean in practice? To me, it means supporting and growing community assets, including Bellcraig community centre and hubs like it across the city, so that people have better places to gather together over shared interests and get to know their neighbours better. It also means making sure that we lead by example in this increasingly diverse world and do our best to ensure that the communities that we represent are tolerant, peaceful, happy and safe places to live and grow up in.
Although we might disagree politically in this chamber, the vast majority of my friends and colleagues across the chamber put politics to one side when the debate ends, and we get on personally outside these walls for the good of communities such as Summerston. Parliament and the communities in our constituencies would be much poorer if we or our constituents let ourselves be irreconcilably divided by politics and forget that, by working together, we can achieve more than we can alone. In fact, as has been proved by the many community groups in Summerston, that is the only way to make a difference in this world.
As we get towards the end of the parliamentary year, I hope that members will leave the debate inspired by the efforts of the people in Summerston, many of whom Bob Doris and others have mentioned, whether that is by the commitment of the Summerston Youth Football Club coaches, the enthusiasm of Ryan Rooney, the dedication of teachers and parents or the tirelessness of the Summerston Community and Environmental Group.
I congratulate Summerston on its 50th anniversary and commend the work of everyone who takes the time to make the communities around it better with no motivation other than to see the people in the area have a better experience of the world. I again thank Bob Doris for securing the debate to allow us to do that for Summerston today.
17:31
I thank my friend Bob Doris for securing the debate and highlighting the good work that has been done in Summerston. I join him in welcoming those who have travelled from Summerston to be with us in the public gallery. As with all those who visit the Parliament, they are very welcome—I hope that they have enjoyed seeing the good work that they undertake in their community reflected in the debate. In that regard, I congratulate the entire community of Summerston on reaching the significant milestone of 50 years, on working together for the benefit of those who live in the area, and on arranging a series of events to mark the anniversary.
I am particularly pleased to be responding to the debate. As Mr Doris will be able to testify, I cut my teeth in the Scottish National Party in Glasgow Maryhill, which is where Summerston is located, and for much of the time that was alongside Mr Doris. There are stories that could be told, but they will remain untold in the chamber.
Will the member take an intervention?
Those stories might be about to be told.
I thank the minister for giving way. This story does not involve the minister; it involves two other MSP colleagues who cut their political teeth in Summerston: Fergus and Annabelle Ewing. Their dad was elected as a local councillor in 1977, and they well remember leafleting all the flats and houses in Summerston. I want to put that on the record, as it is part of the cultural and social history of the area.
It is a blessed relief that that was not one of the stories that Mr Doris could have told, but it is appropriate that he remarked on that and for those of us on the SNP benches to reflect on the great contribution of the Ewing family to our party. Summerston is part of that story.
Summerston is not far from where I grew up, so it is an area that I know well. Indeed, I not only know the area but, as I represent a new town, I recognise the importance of milestones. The 50-year milestone is significant for any community, but many people have lived in Summerston for the entire duration of those 50 years. They have raised families and made lifelong friendships. In that regard, it is a particularly important anniversary.
It has been heartening to hear how the Summerston Community and Environmental Group has been proactive in improving the area, making a significant difference through the development of a community action plan, a range of community events and ambitions for wider environmental improvements. It has been nice to hear about the Easter, summer and Christmas community events, which are now a regular feature for the group. I recognise the hard work that has gone into celebrating the 50th anniversary through the celebration event that the group arranged.
We know that many of the community activities that we have heard about today would not happen without a range of volunteers giving their time in Summerston. Indeed, across the country, volunteers make a difference in their communities. The hands-on effort of community volunteers in Summerston has helped to enhance their local area and improve the lives and wellbeing of those who live there. It is particularly appropriate that the debate has been scheduled during volunteers week. It is appropriate that, in this instance, we say thank you to those who volunteer in Summerston and to all who give their time in their communities across the country.
Bricks and mortar go only so far in creating a community; ultimately, the people create the community. From everything that we have heard from Bob Doris, that is certainly the case for Summerston. It has been terrific to hear about the work that is taking place there to activate, engage and empower local people. I pass my sincere thanks to everyone who is involved in that effort. It is a great example of what we see in communities across the country.
The debate gives us all an opportunity to reflect on what we see in our local areas. We heard Emma Roddick do that. I see much of the same in my area, through organisations such as the Cumbernauld Community Forum, the Cumbernauld community garden, the Craigieburn community garden, the Kilsyth Environmental Group, the friends of Colzium and the Kilsyth and villages community board. Thank you for indulging me, Presiding Officer, in mentioning a few organisations in my area. I do not often get that opportunity when I am responding on behalf of the Government. Those organisations are in my area, but there are of course examples of similar organisations throughout the country. In Summerston, we have a great example in SCEG, and I place on record my thanks to it for all that it does.
The Government has an agenda of community empowerment, to enable people and communities locally to shape services in their area that impact them directly and to take action to support the creation of successful places across Scotland. That is why we introduced the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 and why we have a range of activity to create community wealth building as an approach to economic development. We have also introduced a bill to ensure the consistent implementation of community wealth building across Scotland, which people in Summerston and communities across the country will be able to take forward.
As we know, one of the First Minister’s priorities is to grow the economy, improve public services and eradicate child poverty. That starts with a place-based approach, which is developed in tandem with communities—with people such as Mrs Fowler, Wilma Mather, Billy Souter and the others who Bob Doris mentioned as being involved in the life of Summerston.
I thank Bob Doris for bringing the debate and I again congratulate the community of Summerston. I wish them every success in building on their excellent work to date, and I know that Summerston will continue to flourish for the next 50 years and beyond.
That concludes the debate.
Meeting closed at 17:38.Previous
Point of Order