Demonstrating the Links

For the past two years, SCDC has been supporting Demonstrating the Links, an action research project on the range of benefits of local greenspace activity.  The project was funded and supported by Communities Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage, Greenspace Scotland and NHS Health Scotland.  On 10 March, eight community groups from across Scotland came together in Stirling to share the findings of the action research on the impact of their local greenspaces.  Involving an invited audience of local and national stakeholders, the day involved presentations and workshops run by the local research groups.

The workshops identified key findings from the two-year research programme and the support from national and local partners that will be needed in the future to enable communities to carry out research, deliver community greenspace projects and involve their communities in greenspace work, to improve local quality of life.

Demonstrating the Links was designed to improve Scottish evidence on the impact of greenspace activity on community quality of life. There were two primary outcomes behind the DtL programme:

• to support the capacity of the participating organisations to plan their activities based on a sound understanding of how the greenspace is perceived by users and the community, and the way in which development can be taken forward to maximise the greenspace as a community asset which will contribute to the quality of community life
• to generate community-led evidence on the value of greenspace to local communities and its impact of the quality of quality, with particular reference to excluded or disadvantaged groups

SCDC worked in partnership with Greenspace Scotland on this programme, and worked closely with the 8 community projects that were involved. The reports from each project are now and can be found in the reports and findings section.