How a community helped shape their own playpark
A high-rise community in Glasgow has told how unused "green desert" space was transformed into a playpark.
The site in Cardonald is now known as the Halfway Community Park.
The park has been built next to Moss Heights, the city's first experiment in the use of high-rise flats in 1953, which comprises 263 homes.
The flats are surrounded by large expanses of green space, which locals feel have not achieved their potential as useful outdoor spaces, instead creating "green deserts".
When the Southside Housing Association informed residents that it planned to build a park, Alison Devlin was keen to be involved.
She said: "At the beginning I just thought, 'Oh great, they'll put a park in, that's brilliant.'
"And then I got involved in it and ended up I'm the chairperson of the Halfway [Community] Park. It was a co-ordinated process with the Housing [Association].
"They did ask lots of people in the area what they thought about it so we went along to meetings with the architects, with building workers when they were here.
"One wee boy asked for a zip slide. A slide to come down the hill with a paddling pool at the bottom and we were like, 'we live in Scotland, that's just not feasible.'"
