Open spaces strategy

Last night I attended a public consultation about EDCs open spaces strategy held in the Fraser Centre in Milngavie. Council owned, open spaces over 0.2 hectares in E. Dunbartonshire have been audited, and a strategy for their management has been prepared and is in its final consultative draft form, and as I understand it, once ratified, will be a roadmap guiding implementation of enhancement of these areas over the next 5 years. Nine sites in Milngavie have been highlighted as areas for improvement:

1. MR7 Antonine Gardens Redesign landscape area/gateway feature in collaboration with Milngavie in Bloom

2. MI3 Ashburn Gardens O.S. Potential site for Allotments

3. MI11 Lillie Art Gallery O.S. Small seating/display area outside the Gallery

4. MR5 Barloch Moor Upgrade park facilities

5. MR1 Allander Park Open space upgrades and wetland / grassland creation

6. MR3 Lennox Park Improve design of the Skate park and improve recreational and access links

7. MR4 Mains Park Wildflower creation and woodland management, biodiversity improvements. Open space upgrades

8. MR6 Oak Burn Park Redesign park: circular path network, amenity tree/ shrub planting, seating, and upgraded entrances

9. BLF1 Baldernock Cemetery Enhance the landscaping and create a memorial garden

Consultation of the strategy is effectively over now, but consultation of the implementation will be ongoing, and EDC seemed open to input that can be fed into subsequent strategies.

The meeting was well attended and debate was passionate. Just to highlight a few of the issues raised:

1. Shortage/absence of local football facilities, the provision of which is not actually within the remit of the open spaces strategy but falls under leisure.

2. Concern that many ongoing issues that have been campaigned on for years have been lost perhaps because of restructuring within EDC and renaming of initiatives.

3. Concern that the strategy is too limited in scope.That it seeks to be purely a document focussed on what can be realistically achieved by the council alone with all the limitations associated with that. People wanted a more all-encompassing strategy that included all open spaces including privately owned sites, with a view that implementation would include communities and public/private partnership, and other sources of funding outwith the council budget.

4. Lennox park scate park plans and Lennox park - as an open space hub of Milngavie - improvements in general.

Documents are available on the EDC website