Making a real difference: How we used the Lane Improvement Fund to transform Kingarth Lane

Once notorious as Glasgow's worst fly-tipping hotspot, Kingarth Lane at Bowman Street was once piled high with sofas, mattresses, fridges, and rubbish. In November 2023, the Lane Community group installed gates to tackle the issue and even hosted a community meal in the newly transformed space.

By Katie Macmillan | Photos by Laura Vroomen

If you had told me a year ago that one day I would be sat down at a table eating a home cooked meal with my neighbours in Kingarth Lane, I would have laughed, but on Sunday 15th September that’s exactly what I did.

This was by no means an easy journey and had begun over 2 years previously with the formation of the community group by myself and 2 other residents (Nick Lawrie and Dervila Reid). After being informed by Glasgow City Council that Kingarth Lane was a private lane and therefore the responsibility of the property owners that backed onto the lane we organised litter picks to try and keep the lanes clean. On one such litter pick we filled 2 skips with rubbish, which was back breaking work, a couple of days later the first black bags appeared in the lane again and nothing has felt more disheartening.

Then our Neighbourhood Officer told us about the Lane Improvement Fund that GCC were going to launch, and she encouraged us to apply with the view that we could use the money to put gates up. Applying for this fund meant we had to constitute our community group and open a business bank account. We then filled in the fund application form where we clearly stated we would use it to install gates. We were so pleased when we received the full fund of £20,000 in May 2022. The next step was to obtain Planning Permission for the gates, which we were led to believe was a formality. 

To our great surprise our planning application was refused, some of the reasons given for the refusal included ‘the design of the gates would appear incongruous with the street scene’ and ‘the gates would impact connectivity within the neighbourhood’. We were gobsmacked with this rationale and so exasperated that someone who did not live in our neighbourhood could make a decision that went against the wishes and best interests of the community. We appealed the decision and thankfully the refusal was overturned.

The gates have been in place for nearly 10 months now and the fly tipping has all but stopped. When I think about how long this process took and the pointless bureaucracy that delayed us I get frustrated, but that Sunday as local residents gathered in the lane to prune back greenery, do a small litter pick, set up tables and chairs and eventually sit down opposite one another to talk and enjoy good food cooked by our neighbours and members of the fantastic Kin Kitchen team, all the effort felt worthwhile. My message to anyone who may be embarking on a similar journey with their back lane is to persevere. I think deep down everyone wants to live in a nice community, and if you can take the initial steps towards doing your bit to achieve that goal, you’ll usually find some like minded people along the way and together you’ll get there.