Yvonne Smith is an Hons Sustainable Development student at St Andrews. Yvonne chose Drumchapel in Glasgow, UK, due to the huge disparities between the area’s residents and their affluent neighbours in Bearsden.
Author bio
Drumchapel, locally known as ‘The Drum’, is a post-war social housing scheme and an area on the periphery of Glasgow with mass unemployment and social deprivation and a child poverty rate of 49%. Youth mental health is a big issue, with high suicide rates and substance abuse. People in Drumchapel live on average twelve years less than their affluent neighbours in Bearsden. Health disparities require a wide range of policies, but the austerity measures have antagonised matters. Successful policies include a minimum unit price alcohol policy, the smoking ban in public areas and free bus travel for under 18 year-olds and the Community Empowerment Act of 2015. Drumchapel has been going through a period of regeneration and recommendations in this report include working with Thriving Places and other groups and to partner up with Transition Towns, which have extensive experience in making communities more sustainable and resilient, sharing best practices through global connections. The community could set up projects such as community gardens, markets, community renewables, lets money and solidarity schemes. It could also set up a community kitchen and provide after-school dinners, or include community-led, hands-on projects in the woods for children’s health and well-being. Last but not least it could skill up adults, so they can be entrepreneurial and create work locally.
1. Introduction.
In this community briefing I will give some background into the city of Glasgow and the outskirts, to understand how health inequalities have occurred. Among the huge health disparities between some of the richest and poorest areas in the city, Bearsden and Drumchapel have some of the most noticeable such disparities, as they are next door to one another. The difference in life expectancy can average twelve years between these two places. Life expectancy is not just related to health but social inequalities such as social class, geography, ethnicity, income, and deprivation. Exploring current policy for health inequalities therefore cannot be just looked at under health: it needs to be examined from a more holistic approach. The Scottish government have noticed this and set up a ministerial taskforce to try and tackle the health inequalities by looking at economic and fiscal issues and social security, among others. The problem is a lot of these are out of the Scottish Government’s hands and are down to the austerity measures put in place with the UK government (Walsh et al, 2021). Drumchapel has got an amazing community spirit and people there really want the best for their neighbourhood. There are many community initiatives to try and combat the health disparities and in 2016, Thriving Places was introduced. They have done a lot of work with the community and the different groups to try and improve things such as health and wellbeing, the local environment and help with getting people back into employment. My recommendations would be to work with the people who are already doing an amazing job in Drumchapel and build on that. Other suggestions are made to see if it would be something Drumchapel would be interested in, and I am interested in finding out what ‘The Drum’s’ vocation is and hopefully set the motions in place to fulfil it.
2. Background to Glasgow and its urban sustainability challenge.
Glasgow used to thrive, with the shipping industry being a huge employer for the city. It now thrives with the financial industry in the city centre and there are plenty of designer shops and top hotels. However, the periphery of the city looks slightly different, with post war social housing schemes collectively known as the ‘Big Four’. These consist of Easterhouse, Drumchapel, Castlemilk, and Greater Pollock and all tend to have the same social issues. The health inequalities between the richest and poorest areas in the city can vary drastically with a life expectancy difference of twelve years between neighbourhoods, that are right next door to one another (Patterson, 2019). This is the case between Bearsden and Drumchapel. Bearsden is an affluent suburb of Glasgow, ranked as one of the top ten wealthiest places in Britain, with lots of green space such as a country park and golf club and plenty of amenities (Taylor, 2019). Next door and part of a different council is Drumchapel, better known as The Drum. It was built in the 1950’s next to contaminated land and there were no amenities in the immediate area. Most people had to travel to the city centre for jobs and some of the main employers were the Singer Sewing Machine Factory, Beattie’s Biscuit Factory, Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company and the shipyards. With all these now closed, it has created massive unemployment and social deprivation in the area, which had been neglected for years. Drumchapel is going through a regeneration period, where new homes are being built and there is a social inclusion partnership, so the people of Drumchapel have greater optimism for its future (The Glasgow story).
3. Drumchapel’s health Inequalities.
The women in Drumchapel live on average five years longer than men, while the estimates of male and female life expectancy are slightly lower than the Glasgow average. Below in figure 1 are statistics issued in 2019 for Drumchapel, which show the different health inequality indicators to try and get an understanding of where the issues lie. Drumchapel has a very high proportion of children and has one of the highest rates of child poverty in Glasgow at 48%. Single parent households make up 56% of all households with dependent children and there is a significant amount of child pregnancy. The neighbourhood has a relatively low employment rate and deprivation is linked to health inequalities (Glasgow centre for population and health, 2016)
Figure 1 Understanding Glasgow’s Neighbourhood Profiles: Drumchapel Health Inequality Indicators (source).
Our health can be affected by the conditions of where we are born, grow, live, and work and our age. Mental health is a major issue and Drumchapel has a lot of suicides in youths. Drink and drugs issues, loneliness and isolation and money problems can all have a knock-on effect on premature mortality and elevated blood pressure. There is growing UK policy consensus for mental health to address social costs to people due to the economic downturns and social employment instability. Inequalities can occur due to several issues such as income, social class, geography, ethnicity, and deprivation (Public Health Scotland, 2021).
4. Current policy responses.
Improving health has been attempted in many ways in Scotland such as the smoking ban in public areas put in place in 2005, which was implemented to help provide cleaner air and to prevent passive smoking and hopefully have a knock-on effect on health in general (Scottish Parliament, 2005). Other policies such as a minimum unit price on alcohol which was successful in reducing alcohol purchases and by inference, alcohol consumption (O’Donnell et al, 2018). The Scottish Government have realised that health inequalities cannot just be looked at under the health sector and that they need action instead from different agencies including the NHS, Employers, Schools and Colleges and the third sector, as there are so many other determinants that affect it. (Walsh et al, 2020). They decided to set up the ministerial task force on health inequalities to ensure these inequalities could be tackled along with achieving sustainable economic growth, supported by increases in health life expectancy. They realised that it was not just income that influences inequalities: it can be race, age, disability, gender to name but a few, however the main reason was to look at the socioeconomic circumstances to try and improve health inequalities (Scottish Government, 2007).
Current policy therefore would have to look at a wide range of policies such as economic and monetary, employment, social security and fiscal, to see how they affect health inequalities (ScotPHO, 2021). The issue is a lot of these lie with the UK government, not just the Scottish one (Walsh, et al, 2020). One of the biggest issues which has a large effect on poor communities is the austerity measures originating from the banking crisis of 2008 (Walsh, 2020). This, along with globalisation under the current capitalist system, has widened inequalities around the globe – not just in Drumchapel. The Task Force’s approach refocuses and redesigns public services through community partnerships, to try and make improvements locally, to then share good practices, track the progress and influence change (Scottish Government, Corporate Report). The Scottish Government has been praised for some of its policy areas such as public sector pay policy which has committed to paying minimum of the real living wage to devolved public body employees in Scotland (Mackay MSP, 2018 Scottish Government). This appears to have had a positive impact on the gender pay gap and earning inequalities (Walsh et al, 2020). For people under the age of 18 they are providing free bus travel (BBC News, 2020). Free nursery places policy for 3 and 4 year olds, to almost double the hours to 1140 per year and they are looking to reduce child poverty by 2030 to 10% (Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017) (MacDonald, 2018 Scottish Government). In contrast the UK government have abolished targets altogether for child poverty (Walsh, 2020). Unfortunately, due to COVID 19 a lot of these policies have been postponed such as the extra hours free childcare, the free bus travel – while 50,000 new affordable homes have been delayed (Walsh, 2020).
5. Drumchapel community responses.
Before making potential recommendations, I wanted to see what has been done in Drumchapel previously, to try and combat some of the area’s health inequalities. There are many occasions in the past where communities have reports done but not enough action is put in place to take things forward. I have looked at the Thriving Places programme which was done in Drumchapel in 2016. They interviewed 299 residents and put a survey on their community Facebook pages to find out what was needed in the local area and what some of the challenges and opportunities were. They then organised a participatory day with lunch included to hear the results of the research and to help consider a way forward, based on the themes that came out of the results. These themes included financial hardship, health and wellbeing, isolation, exclusion, participation and power across Drumchapel, community Hub and Drumchapel Shopping Centre. There are limitations to what I can touch on in this particular topic, however I have tried to take these themes into consideration when making recommendations. So, rather than starting something from scratch, I would recommend that we build upon the Thriving Places programme, evaluate what is working well from that programme and what still needs to be done moving forward (Thriving Places report).
Thriving Places have established Drumchapel as having a great community spirit and there are generations of people who want to participate in making it a better place to live, so there is a real sense of community there (McMillan and Chavis 1986). They now have a community hub and there are several groups and charity organisations working out of the area, doing amazing things for health and well-being. The Yorker Centre is a community centre managed by the community which tries to deliver services that suit the community needs. The common issues are exclusion and financial challenges so it is a money and advice centre, where they can get debt counselling; in addition it provides services such as credit union, DRC addictions forum, voices for change and much more all under one roof. The G15 youth project, which works with people aged 12-25, helps combat issues with unemployment, homelessness, gang-fighting, territorialism, drug, and alcoholism to name but a few, and they organise diversionary activities all year round which include go-karting, quad-biking, paintballing etc. They also help them with CV writing, job searchers and support on what is worrying them. Additionally, they have street-workers who walk the streets, speaking to youths in their own environment. There is the 3D Drumchapel charitable organisation which provides support for vulnerable children and families to make positive changes in their lives. They provide support in the schools and nurseries, provide baby massage and toddler activities, they do parenting programmes, asylum seeker dedicated support for families and they organise family trips and outings.
Drumchapel has also just got an army cadets base for youths to join and learn new skills with the hope they will find a career path in the forces. There are many other schemes too, but this was just to highlight some of the excellent work already being done in Drumchapel. What came up as the main challenges that still need to be tackled are addiction issues, anxiety, isolation, job prospects and the shopping centre for not feeling safe and not well lit. It was also brought up that years ago you would have been able to speak to people in power and get things done in the area if needed. Now they feel like there is a disconnect between themselves and the politicians (Thriving Places report). Scotland has centralised its local authorities as this is supposed to increase efficiency, but it can take away the localised personal touch, which seems to be the case in Drumchapel (Hollenbeck et al, 2011; Scottish Government, 2021). We could learn from the Norwegian decentralised structure, which has 356 municipalities compared to our 32 local authorities: this helps create a more localised, adaptive approach to governance (Bang, 2016).
6. Recommendations.
My main recommendation would be to work with Thriving Places and all the amazing community groups to get them to work together to see if they can help each other, which can also help with connections, skills, and resources. It would be my intention to find out where the community is with their 2016 plans and where they would still like to be.
The following are suggestions that the community may want to consider as options moving forward.
There are a lot of brownfield sites surrounding Drumchapel that could possibly be taken over and used by the community. It would be worthwhile finding out who this land belongs to and try and get this to be community owned. Drumchapel could potentially become a garden city (Howard, 1902) and the council could help with this procedure through the Community Empowerment Act 2015. This could be turned into sustainable farming land and the food that is grown could help provide for the community. We could try and get one of the many centres in Drumchapel to double up as a community kitchen and we could try and seek grant funding to make these changes.
There are places like this (in Japan, for example) that provide somewheree for school children to go after school and they are given their dinner each day; parents can then collect them after their work. This ensures that children have a nutritious healthy meal each night, which in turn helps with child poverty (UN SDG Roadmap). We could team up with other groups such as 3D Drumchapel to see if people could help with looking after children and making the food. If there were any budding chefs or nursery teachers, this could be an opportunity for them to get skills in these fields. The land could also be used for people to have their own allotments and there could be a park there so children can play and hopefully encourage them to come along with their parents and learn how to grow nutritious food (Transition Towns Network).
Transition Towns Network is an organisation that think of alternative methods of making communities more sustainable and resilient by working with them, building relationships and cooperation’s and helping them come up with social innovations. Some of the innovations they have done so far include communities having their own money like the lets schemes; they also have bike repair schemes, community renewables, community allotments, local markets and they promote local trade. They get you to reimagine your community and help you connect with other Transition Towns across the UK and across the globe. They have a support network set up, which links you to expertise at your fingertips. They do webinars and you can learn from others, get advice, and choose what would be right for Drumchapel. The founder did a PhD in permaculture and would be very good at giving advice on the subject if the brownfield sites were able to be used (Transition Network).
The Singer factory used to be a big employer for Drumchapel so it would be interesting to find out if there are people still in the area with those skills (The Glasgow Story), either to teach others sewing machine skills or how to make or repair them. It would then be useful to see if there were any budding fashion designers in the area who could come along and work as a team. In the town of Paisley, just east of Glasgow, they get clothes from the local charity shops and redesign them to give them a different look. It has taken off really well and they now have two boutiques, and they also sell their sustainable designs online (ReMode Youth Paisley). This is a way of making a circular economy, having fun, learning new skills, and meeting new friends along the way. They have the older generation teaching the younger generation new skills. If there are any people who can still repair the machines it would be good to open a section in one of the hubs so that this could be a small business and hopefully a way of helping train up others too.
Community woodlands are excellent for health and well-being and the Drumchapel woods at the west side is owned by the council and run by the forestry commission. They already do work such as the Forrest school which encourages children back to the outdoors through doing activities such as den building, walking the forest, tracking the animals, and learning how to use forest tools. They also have the green gym where people are encouraged to help clear cycle pathways, overhanging branches, and plant new trees. Considering there are so many young children in Drumchapel, it might be worthwhile looking at Taft Woodland Project in Crossgates. They have a community woodland which they have turned into a fairy glen and the children and parents love to go there and find all the different fairy hiding places. They tend to bring a picnic with them and make a morning or afternoon of it. This would be a way of getting people back into nature again which is excellent for mental health but also a free way of entertaining children and getting exercise. This could be a project that the community could work with the forestry committee to do. The high school could get involved in helping make it, with the woodwork department. Another idea would be to see if they could get a GoApe project going, which would be an excellent opportunity for getting the teenagers out in nature, keep them fit and be good for well-being.
Finally, if Drumchapel could get a weekly market going, the people could sell the food and clothing at the market stalls too.
It needs a good facilitator and connections through facebook pages and the community newspaper this could be pulled together. Thriving Places and the other community groups could possibly help facilitate this.
7. Conclusion.
In conclusion, there may be health inequalities that mark quite a substantial difference from the neighbouring communities, but it does not have to be that way. Life expectancy is not just related to health: it is also related to income, deprivation, social inequalities, social class, ethnicity, and geography.
However, if you make your place a better place and you bring solidarity into the equation, then you can eliminate some of these through being a collective and looking out for one another. It is about re-imaging what you want from your community. Drumchapel has an amazing community spirit and people want the best for it, so it is about deciding what Drumchapel’s vocation is and making it happen as a community. There are loads of different grants and pathways and thriving places is a great asset to Drumchapel along with the other community groups who are doing fantastic work. Transitions Towns has a network of communities all trying to find ways of being more sustainable and resilient and there is a lot that can be learnt from them – whether it be permaculture, urban farming, allotments, or a community market. They can give support, advice and links to other communities doing similar things. With the new Community Empowerment Act that came out in 2015 there are real opportunities for communities to take over brownfield sites and community buildings to be able to have community hubs and kitchens. The Japanese idea of having the children go there after school and all the ‘bairns’ being fed before the parents come in from work, can really help with the child poverty situation and provides a baby-sitting service which the ‘bairns’ enjoy, because they are with their friends. It is about making connections between the right people to get things done. Hopefully through having a sense of community and including as many different people as possible, it will give people a sense of purpose and belonging. This is good for happiness, health, and well-being, which in turn can hopefully raise the life expectancy.
8. References.
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