Nicola produced a set of illustrations inspired by people and places in Milton and turned these into silk screens for printing. She then developed a templat for a bag and working with the group [The Milton Screamers} they set about creating some truly beautiful work.

all hands on deck

We hope that these will be the first steps towards creating a social enterprise that can provide an income and support the group. New members are welcomed and encouraged.

local people taking part in our tree planting day at St Monica's Playing fields

Love Milton now has over 230 members and runs a whole host of workshops, activities and initiatives for the community.

Last year we obtained planning permission for our proposed new community building and now the fight is on to raise the money required to make the dream a reality. Every single person in milton is and should be a part of that dream so we say this to you.

We need you… please come join us.

Love Milton

Love Milton is now a company limited by guarantee and is currently in the process of applying for  charitable status.  Membership of  Love Milton will be open to everyone in Milton and we will be encouraging as many people in the local community to get involved  in the organisation.

The Love Milton group submitted an application for planning permission to Glasgow City Council at the end of July and are currently waiting to discover whether this has been approved.

The final scheme proposed a series of three interconnected buildings that provide a variety of different community resources. The buildings sit within a landscaped public park that will have play facilities, market stalls and a memorial garden.

It is important that the whole community gets behind this project and over the coming months the group will be looking to organise a series of events  to promote and exhibit the project to local people.

At present the new building will have a cafe, a church, a private garden, a soft play area, baby change facilties, permant activity hall, flexible theatre space, office lets, a gallery space and internet access. As we move forward with the project there will still be opportunities to suggest other ideas as well and tweak the designs accordingly.

You will find images of the current proposals below and over the next couple of weeks we will implement a poster campaign around Milton explaining the ideas behind the project and asking everyone to get behind it.

site strategy

Site Model

Model of Proposed Church

As part of the groups research into Development Trusts and successful community building we organised a trip to Castlemilk Stables. This building is owned by the Cassiltoun Trust and provides the local community with a nursery, outdoor amenity space, arts classes and business lets amongst other uses. The project involved the total refurbishment of a semi-derelict stables block and has returned a wonderful building to it’s former glory.

Our host was the director of Cassiltoun Housing Association Charlie Millar who explained the history of the project and in particular the role of the community in driving and influencing the process. We also got a tour of the building which provided a real lesson in what can be achieved by local communities if they work together with ambition and commitment.

Thanks should go to John Doig for arranging the visit and the transport and to everyone who came.

cafe and entrance area

At Bankfoot there is a cafe with professional catering kitchen, soft play area, function suite, church, youth drop-in, activity hall and several smaller rooms that are let to different community organisations. Whilst all of these facilities are under one roof they are all able to operate interdependently because they have their own entrances which makes maintenance, control and security easy to manage.

soft play area

The centre at Bankfoot has also been designed in an environmentally friendly way. It uses wind turbines to generate some of it’s electricity and utilises several materials in it’s design that have been fabricated with waste materials. The roof tiles may look like slate but are actually made of rubber tyres, the tiles in the bathroom are made from old yoghurt pots and in other areas crushed CDs have been used to make light filters.

the activity hall

Visiting Bankfoot provided an oppurtunity to witness the success of an ambitious project and demonstrated that many of the challanges that face our project can be overcome. I hope all those who came enjoyed the experience and special thanks must go to the Minister at Bankfoot who showed us around and also to Barry Dickson who kindly drove the mini bus from Milton.

This evening offered an opportunity to present the consultation work done thus far and present initial ideas and thinking regarding the design of the building. Having consulted with the wider community about how the building could provide for them I felt we had reached a stage where members of Colston Milton Parish Church should become more intimately involved in the design of the project and in particular the church element of the building. This meeting was attended by members of the Church Session and the Church Buildings Group.

The consultation carried out thus far shows overwhelming support within the wider community and enthusiasm for the project. Having the church involved in and leading the project is also viewed very positively.

Whilst there are clearly issues that need to be resolved regarding how the building will be managed and the churches role within any organisation that is created to own and maintain the building there was a general consensus amongst those at this meeting that this project does provide an almost unique opportunity for the parish to gain a new building and the funding required.

The following initial strategies were presented to the group for discussion. They illustrate how the project could relate to the site in different ways and present initial ideas for how the church can be incorporated into the wider scheme.

intial site strategies

I feel it is important to maintain that the existing pedestrian routes on the site are maintained and are actually enhanced by the new building. In Strategy 1 all the elements of the project are joined within one while building, in Strategy 2 the church is built as a seperatebuilding detached from the rest of the scheme, in Strategy 2 the project is conceived as a community campus made up of several small buildings which would be managed by different groups. Most people thought that it was important that the church was to seen to be an integral part of the community and that this was best represented in the first strategy, however it was also felt that the community campus idea also had it’s merits as it would create a ‘village square’ feel in this part of Milton. It was decided that both these ideas would be developed further. 

a variety of plans used for the design of churches

This presentation was also used to investiagte how worship was conducted at present and how this could influence the form and plan of the church element of the project. Several diagrams were conceived and presented to the group for consideration. It was felt that the space should be flexible, easy to construct and non-hierarchical. The diagrams that represented the ideas of the group were the elipse, the circle and the rectangle. As the design progresses these forms will all be explored in greater detail.

I felt that this meeting was extremely useful in giving me direction for developing the design of the building further. It also proved useful in introducing the project and provoking discussion and debate about how the project had been conceived, how it should be developed and what the churches role and level of influence should be in terms of the wider aims of the project. More comment regarding all these themes is encouraged.

Lee