Landscape Statement – Vision

The Glasgow branch of the Forth and Clyde Canal is located 1km north of the city centre. It meanders through various disadvantaged communities including Woodside, Firhill and Hamiltonhill. These communities lie within the 15% Scottish Index Multiple Deprivation most deprived areas in Scotland and suffer from some of the country’s worst health statistics. The quality of open space in these communities was poor. Many residents felt disconnected from other parts of the city and were rarely able to access and enjoy the benefits of natural or semi-natural environments.

The Claypits is a large 17ha area of post-industrial site that straddles the canal. It was designated as ‘Vacant and Derelict Land’, and formed a significant barrier to movement between adjacent communities and their respective facilities. Perimeter security fencing, steep topography and anti-social behaviour discouraged access and use. It was perceived by many as unsafe with much of the site also contaminated. Nevertheless, members of the local community recognised the site’s untapped potential as a wildlife haven, its wild ‘green’ character, and its elevated views across city.

In 2014 a partnership between Scottish Canals and Glasgow City Council appointed LUC to lead a design Charrette, to work collaboratively with members of the local community and stakeholder groups to establish a shared vison, a cohesive development framework, and Green Infrastructure masterplan for the Claypits site. The main aim was to explore the site’s potential in terms of what a revitalised and multifunctional greenspace could offer in terms of contributing to wider sustainable development.

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How does this project deliver the principles of the charter?

1. Collaboration

The Claypits project is a testament to the success of collaborative design and community engagement in regenerating post-industrial land. Led by LUC, the project began with an intensive Charrette involving the Glasgow Canal Regeneration Partnership, local communities, and multiple stakeholders to develop a shared vision and Green Infrastructure Masterplan. The collaborative process ensured community aspirations were embedded in every stage, from strategic design principles to detailed construction. LUC coordinated a multi-disciplinary team of ecologists, engineers, heritage consultants, and artists to address the site’s challenges holistically. Despite the complexities of managing funding from multiple sources and delivering work through 14 contracts, the collaboration resulted in a unified and impactful project. The Claypits is now a cherished greenspace that reflects the collective efforts of all involved.

2. Dynamism

Transforming the Claypits from a derelict industrial site into Glasgow’s only inner-city Local Nature Reserve showcases the project’s dynamism. LUC overcame significant challenges, including steep topography, contaminated land, and redundant canal infrastructure. Contaminated areas were capped with recycled on-site materials, and historic canal features were repaired and repurposed for leisure and ecological uses. The design embraced the site’s unique wild character, integrating 1.5km of new paths, bridges, and boardwalks to improve access while revealing key views. The Claypits dynamically addressed ecological, social, and connectivity needs, creating a vibrant, multi-functional greenspace. The Claypits is more than just a static park; it is a vibrant, multifunctional space that continuously evolves to meet the needs of the community. It provides educational opportunities, fosters biodiversity, and contributes significantly to creating local 20-minute neighbourhoods.

3. Diversity

The Claypits project celebrates diversity in both its ecological design and social inclusivity. Ecologically, the site has been transformed into a rich mosaic of habitats, providing a sanctuary for diverse species, including roe deer, otters, peregrine falcons, and numerous birds and insects. Over 8,000 trees were planted, enhancing biodiversity and creating a vibrant natural environment that accommodates varied wildlife. The project also fosters social diversity by improving accessibility for people from all backgrounds. Its design prioritises inclusivity, ensuring safe access for residents from nearby disadvantaged communities and integrating features such as pedestrian and cycle pathways, play areas, and educational spaces. The wide range of activities, including birdwatching tours, school visits, and community events, promotes engagement with the site across all age groups and demographics. The creation of a Local Nature Reserve, now recognized as Glasgow’s only inner-city nature reserve, offers a valuable space for leisure, education, and recreation, benefiting people from all walks of life. The Claypits serve as a model of how landscape design can support both ecological diversity and social inclusivity, offering a sustainable and vibrant space for future generations.

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What's Next

The Claypits Local Nature Reserve is now activity managed by multiple organisations in partnership. Scottish Canals are responsible for structures such as bridges and  boardwalks whereas Scottish Water maintain the SUDS infrastructure. Glasgow City Council maintain an area of the site within their ownership known as ‘The Garscube Link’. The remainder of the site is managed and maintained by a volunteer management group comprising enthusiastic individuals from the local community. The group aims to work with others to protect and enhance the wildlife that live within the Claypits as well as maintaining  this important place for the local communities and visitors. The management group also host regular events such as school visits,  nature walks and litter picks. They also host a range of events with the partners from art related activities to wildlife monitoring and habitat care.

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Image Credits:

LUC

Landscape Statement – Vision

Falkirk Greenspace is a framework for the long-term transformation of Falkirk’s peri-urban and urban greenspaces, which in the early 1990s were blighted by post-industrial decay, poor access and habitat fragmentation. It has involved multiple projects which have been delivered by many different partners over a period of 30 years, but all driven by a common vision of a connected network of inspiring, nature rich and healthy spaces, which envelop and  bring multiple benefits to our communities.

Some of these projects – the Falkirk Wheel, the Kelpies, Helix Park and the John Muir Way – have attracted national and international attention, but equally important has been the myriad of lesser interventions including community woodland creation and management, park enhancement, and public art/interpretation celebrating the important but often neglected heritage of the area.

Falkirk Greenspace was a pioneering approach, embodying the principles of green networks and nature-based solutions long before these terms were in common usage. 30 years on, the initiative demonstrates the value of a consistent and long-term policy commitment to urban landscape renewal, embedded in successive development plans and delivered through incremental but joined up investment. It has been fundamental to the economic revitalisation of the area and its burgeoning visitor economy, but it is also a source of pride for local people, who have been closely involved in its planning and delivery, and who consistently cite greenspace and path networks as the one of the most valued aspects of the area. 

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How does this project deliver the principles of the charter?

1. Collaboration

Partnership has been at the heart of Falkirk Greenspace from the outset. The core collaboration has been between the local authority and GAT (and its predecessors), with Falkirk Council bringing its strategic planning function, public land and core funding to the table, and marrying this with with GAT’s strengths in design, delivery, consultation and fundraising.

However, many other partners have contributed across a range of projects. Scottish Canals have been fundamental to the rejuvenation of Falkirk’s two canals through the Millenium Link and the Kelpies. Callendar Estate has worked with the Council to enhance management, access and recreation across its extensive estate to the south of Falkirk. NHS Forth Valley were partners in the transformation of the designed landscape around the new Forth Valley Royal Hospital into an accessible and healing setting for the core clinical facility. Partnership with private developers on strategic housing sites has delivered some key linking greenspaces.

The enthusiasm and knowledge of local people has also been integral to the transformation, exemplified by the Zetland Park project in Grangemouth where the Friends of Zetland group were initiators and partners in this award-winning restoration of a neglected but much-loved Victorian park.

2. Dynamism

Falkirk Greenspace has been characterised by its flexible and dynamic approach. It is a spatial framework, which has adapted to changing policy priorities, organisational change, funding streams and local needs. This has been the secret to its longevity.

In its early life it was a free-standing local initiative with a focus on woodland creation, landscape renewal, and access. Over time it has embraced and been re-energised by association with other wider projects such as the Millennium Link and the Central Scotland Green Network. Latterly the focus of projects has been increasingly on climate mitigation and resilience, and nature recovery, as exemplified by the sustainable grass management project in our parks and the Climate Forth project currently being progressed by the Inner Forth Landscape Partnership.

Innovation and experimental approaches to urban landscape change has also been central to Falkirk Greenspace, reflected in the awards which individual projects and the wider initiative have won over the years.

3. Diversity

Despite its compact scale, Falkirk and it surrounding settlements host a diverse mix of peri-urban landscapes and landscape challenges. We have the legacy of a long and celebrated industrial past, an urban fringe under considerable development pressure, a network of remnant and generally neglected estate landscapes, major communication and service corridors, important historic and cultural landscapes such as the Antonine Wall, river corridors, and coastal estuary.

Falkirk Greenspace has responded to this mosaic with a commensurate diversity of projects and approaches, mitigating the negative effects of industrial decline, enhancing and linking our underutilised and undervalued assets, building connected greenspace into planned urban growth, and above all, reconnecting people to nature and these revitalised landscapes.

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What's Next

We expect to undertake a review of the Falkirk Greenspace Strategy within the next couple of years, in tandem with the review of the Falkirk Local Development Plan. But in the meantime, the work continues, with gaps in the network still to join up. There will be an increasing focus on the management and maintenance of the assets which have been created over the past 30 years, on the role of community and third sector organisations, and on tackling the twin climate and nature crises which are at the heart of National Planning Framework 4.

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Image Credits:

Falkirk Council

Landscape Statement – Vision

The Inner Forth Futures (IFF) partnership aims to make the Inner Forth a better place to live, work, visit and invest in, by helping to promote its natural and cultural heritage, and sustainable transport options. We also want to support communities so that they feel confident to take a greater role in managing and promoting the area’s heritage for themselves.

Our vision is that the sense of connection, purpose and place that put the Inner Forth at the forefront of the industrial development of Scotland will be revitalised.  We aim to achieve this using a landscape-scale approach with heritage at its core to engage people in new ways in its future management.

The initiative will achieve this vision by delivering four objectives:

• Deliver a strong legacy from the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative that maintains  and builds on the success of this previous project.
• Make the Inner Forth a better area to live, work, visit and invest in by stimulating the promotion and awareness of its natural and cultural heritage assets and sustainable transport options.
• Support communities so that they feel confident and empowered to take a greater role in management and promotion of the area’s heritage.
• Pilot partnership approaches to delivering habitat networks and climate adaptation.

Climate FORTH is the current project being delivered by the Inner Forth Futures Partnership.

Previous projects:

• Inner Forth Landscape Initiative (IFLI)
• Wanderings & Windings

Current live projects:

• Climate FORTH
• Inner Forth Habitat Network Call to Action and Concept Maps.

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How does this project deliver the principles of the charter?

1. Collaboration

Inner Forth Futures is based on a collaborative and cross-sectoral approach. Within the partnership are nine organisations including local authorities, statutory agencies and third sector organisations.  We engage with and work through local community groups, individuals and businesses to develop and deliver projects.

IFF is a strong collaboration of organisations that have worked together around the upper Firth of Forth in Central Scotland to celebrate, enhance and make heritage relevant since 2012. Together with Inner Forth communities, volunteers and other project lead organisations, IFF delivered the NLHF-funded Inner Forth Landscape Initiative (2014-18), which our external evaluators noted as demonstrating, ‘one of the best, if not the best, example of a partnership working together that we have encountered.’

IFF convenes the Inner Forth Natural Heritage Working Group that focuses on facilitating collaboration to benefit natural heritage projects and working around the upper Firth of Forth. This group is responsible for the Inner Forth Habitat Network Call to Action and Concept Maps. We believe that promoting opportunities to deliver Scotland’s Nature Network at a regional scale, such as the Inner Forth, will empower land managers, decision makers, organisations and businesses to take effective action.

Connecting and collaborating with as wide an audience as possible is at the heart of the IFF partnership. Our projects aim to facilitate and empower local authorities, communities, and business in progressing their skills, awareness and understanding of the landscape and heritage, so that they can positively engage with and adapt their local area for generations to come.

2. Dynamism

IFF’s Inner Forth Habitat Network (IFHN) is working to landscape-scale visions within a dynamic landscape shaped both by the forces of the River and humans.

Inner Forth Habitat Network:

We believe that promoting opportunities to deliver Scotland’s Nature Network at a regional scale, such as the Inner Forth, will empower land managers, decision makers, organisations and businesses to take effective action. In 2019 we facilitated an engagement process that identified five key habitat types for the Inner Forth. The IFHN Call to Action last updated in 2022 reflects achievements to deliver the network and new opportunities. The IFHN concept maps and user guide describes how to locate where the conservation, restoration and management of an existing habitat is the priority for the coherence of the habitat network, and where the Opportunity Network is located i.e. places to strengthen the habitat network.

3. Diversity

The Firth of Forth is one of Scotland’s largest and most strategically important estuaries due to its plentiful natural resources and its easy access to sea transport routes. At a landscape-scale, the Inner Forth is a region of rich heritage, that supports internationally important wildlife and, for hundreds of years, trading, industrial and leisure activity. It was a cradle of the industrial revolution and although extractive industries, such as coal and salt, have now gone, their legacy remains in landscape features and ongoing manufacturing-sector employment. Despite this diversity of heritage, many heritage features are overlooked and under-used. Social challenges in our area include social problems, including unemployment, health inequalities and areas of multiple deprivation.

Through the IFF current project, Climate FORTH, we seek to ensure that adapting to change in the Inner Forth is part of a just transition – at the core of our project is supporting our most at-risk communities, notably young people and those facing environmental deprivation and inequality, to increase their resilience, wellbeing and access to opportunities.

 We work with communities to help them develop long-term approaches to looking after their local natural, cultural and built heritage with the aim to create a greater appreciation and awareness of the area’s rich heritage.

The partnership continues to provide volunteering and ‘visiteering’ opportunities, where locals and visitors to the area can positively contribute to the landscape they are enjoying.  Upskilling sessions have also been provided so communities can maintain their local area e.g. community orchard creation and skills sessions.

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What's Next

The Inner Forth Futures partnership is currently in delivery phase of the Climate FORTH (Furthering Our Resilience Through Heritage) project (July 2023 – October 2026).

The IFF partnership is committed to ensuring the legacy of Climate FORTH by managing and maintaining outputs for a period of time agreed with our core funder, NLHF. This is also the case for our previous landscape-scale NLHF-funded programme the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative. Management and maintenance is carried out or managed by IFF Partners.

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Image Credits:

Inner Forth Futures

Landscape Statement – Vision

Climate FORTH aims to make the following differences for local heritage, people and place by working in targeted locations within the Inner Forth’s four local authority areas and 215 km² landscape, sharing our findings to inspire further action:

• The Inner Forth’s heritage is valued and has inspired action to meet Scotland’s net zero climate targets and made positive economic and societal change.
• The Inner Forth’s natural and built heritage assets have an increased resilience to societal and climatic change.
• People and places within the Inner Forth have an increased resilience to change, as a result of heritage supporting the economy, healthy lifestyles, sustainable choices and a just transition.

 Climate FORTH aims to trial, pilot and promote new approaches that have not been tested in this area or used to address this challenge.

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How does this project deliver the principles of the charter?

1. Collaboration

Climate FORTH reflects the collective needs identified by IFF to work with and through new stakeholders, experts, and supporters to address the most pressing issues affecting the Inner Forth.

Through collaboration and co-creation, pilot schemes are exploring how new adaptive responses to change can safeguard, sustain and re-purpose our unique natural, cultural and built heritage assets. We will ensure that adapting to change in the Inner Forth is part of a just transition and we hold at the core of this project, the aim to support our most at-risk communities. Pilot activities will be carried out with the support of our partners and we will work collaboratively with community groups, individuals, young people and businesses. In all connections made, the Climate FORTH project will look to build positive, respectful and productive relationships that will outlast the project and benefit communities and heritage for future generations.

The project’s purpose is to discover whether there are tools and techniques that have not previously been used in this area that can help local communities, organisations and stakeholders to take more action and to engage more people in action that tackles climate change and responds to the effects climate change will have on them.

We believe in the importance of strong communication and strive to achieve the above through targeted, high-quality communications and events to reach a wide audience.

We will share learning from the pilots, influence adaptation and promote transition to a climate-ready place, by providing or facilitating quality experiences and information aligned with Climate FORTH objectives.

2. Dynamism

Climate FORTH is designed to test, pilot and share learning. The project area is large and the scale of the problem faced is significant, so no claim is made that Climate FORTH will be able to implement adaption and mitigation measures across the whole project area. The aim is to trial, pilot and promote new approaches that have not been tested in this place or used to address this challenge.

Several activities will drive action on climate change adaptation / mitigation, through supporting new approaches to managing and using heritage assets, working with local communities or asset owners / managers.

Training will increase the number of groundwork operatives who are skilled and confident in undertaking habitat management with a focus on climate adaptation / mitigation.

Our Virtual Reality work will be used to highlight the impact of climate change, specifically flooding, to raise awareness and prompt discussions / actions on adaptation.

We are carrying out heritage adaptation work including new windows at a well-used historic building to increase energy efficiency, consolidating a historic structure and increasing resilience of two natural green spaces.

The learning from the project will be shared during project delivery. This is a crucial part of the project that will inspire and inform other individuals, communities and organisations to act.

To make this piloting approach effective, activities will be delivered in specific and targeted locations allowing us to balance the level of impact from the capital investment with the number of people engaged directly in the activity and the ability to maximise learning from the project.

3. Diversity

Our Community Heritage Group Training and Mentoring will facilitate and demonstrate how enabling community action can support the transition to a climate resilient landscape. By supporting groups who manage natural or historic heritage assets to consider what ‘carbon net zero’ may mean for their site(s), it will enable and inspire action to meet Scotland’s net zero climate change targets. This pilot will focus on the skills and knowledge required to ensure community groups can deliver management that will allow their sites to adapt to the likely impacts of climate change. Climate FORTH’s Local Resilience Plans & Participatory Budget work is moving onto delivery of outputs. The communities involved have a strong sense of identity and history, with their heritage assets playing a fundamental role. To date, all four community groups and wider community have positively engaged with consultation and voting on improvements and adaptation to locally important heritage. Outputs chosen by the communities include heat pump installation, improved heating systems and improved community garden resources. We will support these communities in tendering for works and applying for additional funding, providing them with skills and knowledge to repeat this process independently in future. We recognise the importance of and will give a voice to young people. We have begun a Young Leaders programme, where Inner Forth young people will develop their knowledge about heritage, better enabling them to make decisions about its future. Additionally, we are finalising an online platform where young people can learn green skills and related employment opportunities.

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What's Next

The project will have a management and maintenance period of 5 years post October 2026.

Activities of Climate FORTH are developed with a strong legacy component in mind – with elements included to ensure activities persist beyond October 2026 and/or lessons learned are shared widely for other projects / initiatives to utilise or replicate.

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Image Credits:

Inner Forth Futures and Climate FORTH