Greenpark Centre: Polmont residents rally round to save closure-threatened community hub

Greenpark Community Centre in Polmont is one of more than 100 properties that Falkirk Council announced would either transfer out of council ownership or close altogether as part of a review of its property.

The centre is one of the biggest and busiest in the Falkirk council area and a small group of community activists were hopeful that they could keep it open by transferring it into community ownership.

Former councillor Malcolm Nicol and Michael Stuart of Polmont Community Council, along with Sheila McKee, the chair of Greenpark’s management committee, were all keen to take plans forward. But after two or three meetings with few people attending, they were beginning to lose hope.

Mr Nicol said: “We had a couple of meetings and there wasn’t a great attendance. Then we decided to really get it done seriously, so we leafleted most of the village and put posters and banners up.

“We were rewarded with around 100 people coming to the Greenpark Centre with several more attending online.”

To take the application to the next stage, which involves registering with the Scottish charity regulator, they were told that they would need at least 20 people to make it sustainable.

“I’m happy to say we got almost 50 people signed up,” said Mr Nicol.

“There are challenges – there’s no getting away from that,” said Mr Nicol, who says parts of the building are basically “huts” that are past their best.

“Once this comes to fruition – and hopefully it will now – we need to look at ways to find money to improve the centre and provide what the people of Polmont really want.

“It’s not just going to be a case of continuing as it is, because that’s not sustainable. It’s not recognising that nowadays people are looking at different things from 20, 30 years ago.”

He was particularly encouraged to see a good turnout from young people, with lots of ideas and keen to play their part.

“Various people have great ideas to take it forward but we’ve got to walk before we run and comply with all the legal side of things,” he said.

The aim is to get the legal paperwork completed and the building handed over by 2025.

The meeting was also attended by Falkirk Council’s head of Invest, Paul Kettrick, and development officer Arthur Berg, who Mr Nicol says have been very helpful in taking the proposal forward. Mr Nicol also thanked the three local councillors, Gordon Forrest (SNP), Anne Hannah (Labour) and James Kerr (Conservative), for all their support.

“It’s totally non-political and everybody is mucking in to help – as it should be when it’s for the community.”

Mr Nicol says they were delighted with the response from the community this time. He is now confident that there is a “good mix of people” with the skills and experience to make it a success.

“We hear all this talk about social media but it wasn’t until we did it the old-fashioned way, with leaflets through people’s letter boxes alerting them to the threat and posters up that they responded in big numbers!”