Our first five-year Glencairn & Moniaive Action Plan (GMAP 2016-22) prioritised actions across core areas and resulted in the following projects:
The Hive – Community Shop & Hub
In 2017 Moniaive Initiative started using a Big Lottery Fund Development Grant to progress a Concept Design for a proposed Community Shop & Hub project in Moniaive High Street. Having established through an earlier Feasibility Study that this model could be sustainable in Moniaive, we completed an Options Appraisal on 6 buildings that were at that time available for purchase / lease in the High Street, and finally settled on our ‘target’ building. Unfortunately, specialist surveys eventually showed that our first choice of building was in a worse condition than expected, and not a financially viable option for us.
In May 2018 we were kindly allowed by the owners of AMD (one of the other buildings in our Options Appraisal) to run a trial ‘Pop Up Hub’ during the weekend of the Moniaive Folk Festival. This gave us the opportunity to showcase not only our own work, but also that of many other community groups and organisations. We received positive feedback on this trial, and were able to use it to consider in more detail how we might use that building in the future.
In July 2018 we were accepted back onto the Big Lottery / Scottish Land Fund programme, and were subsequently successful with our Stage I application. We negotiated a 6-month lease of the AMD and carried out remedial works to bring the empty building back into use, including inspections of the electrical, plumbing and heating installations, and replacement of the broken front window. With the help of local volunteers we cleaned and redecorated the building. We borrowed furniture from Dumfries SHAX, and received further donations of furniture, paint and decorating equipment from local residents. Display counters were made from the solid wooden doors donated from a nearby house renovation. Our volunteers spent some 117 hours preparing the building for opening. We offered a Pre-Loved Clothes and Accessories section, locally-produced Arts & Crafts, an Honesty Library and community hub area, a Workshop space and a Therapy Room.
We submitted our Stage II application (for purchase costs) to the Scottish Land Fund in early December 2018. Then doors of our ‘Trial Hub’ were eventually opened in mid-December 2018, with a pop-up party for the Living Advent Calendar, followed by an Official Opening event. We were overwhelmed by the local support for these events. In early February 2019 we held a competition to name the Hub, and eventually settled on ‘The Hive’. Later that month we received confirmation that our Scottish Land Fund application had been successful: we were awarded £56,691 and completed the purchase in June 2019.
Affordable Housing
In 2016 we carried out feasibility work on community housing in Moniaive which identified suitable long-term empty properties for development. With funding from Scottish Government Rural Housing Fund and SSE Dumfries & Galloway Sustainable Development Fund we were able to purchase and renovate 12 Sawmill Green, Moniaive in 2019/20, renovating the long-empty property to provide a fully-accessible home suitable for an older / less mobile person. Progress was delayed by the Covid Pandemic, but our first tenant was able to move in during August 2020. This project won the “Best Long-Term Empty Homes Restoration Project” award at the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership Annual Awards in 2021.
Macara Park Improvement Project
In 2014 Moniaive Initiative started working with the local community to implement improvements to Macara Park. A newly-formed group, the Friends of Macara Park, held work-parties to clean the existing play equipment and pressure-hose the safety surfacing. Following local consultation, we selected Playdale to install a dedicated Toddler Area and an Aerial Runway. In September 2017 we finally reached our fundraising target, thanks to the following generous grants and donations:
£4,529 – Annandale & Nithsdale Community Benefit Company
£5,000 – Glencairn Community Council Windfarm Fund
£8,889 – The Holywood Trust
£10,000 – Awards For All
£2,750 – D&G Nithsdale Area Committee
£682.54 – Local fundraising & donations
£31,850.54 – TOTAL
Our local fundraising target was given a welcome boost by the staff of Watsons Groceries, who donated the proceeds from the sale of the “Big Graham” calendar to our project in February 2017
Installation commenced in November 2017, and the Aerial Runway was completed early in the New Year. Unfortunately the weather was against us, and the safety surfacing for the Toddler Area could not be completed until early March 2018. We held the Official Opening on 26 March 2018. After a quick downpour, Elaine and Evie were able to cut the ribbon on the new Toddler Area, whilst Carys and Kelvin (the Gala Queen and Gala King) cut the ribbon on the Aerial Runway. We then had a sunny, Spring afternoon of Easter Egg Hunts, egg and spoon races, bike circuits, and good, old-fashioned play on the new equipment.
Thanks to everyone who donated time or money to this project!
Lower Speed Communities Project
One of our priorities outlined in the Glencairn & Moniaive Action Plan 2016-22 was the improvement of accessibility. We were able to join a national pilot project called Lower Speed Communities, where we worked with Living Streets (Scotland) to achieve a 20mph limit. We held a community meeting in May 2017, bringing together representatives of local organisations and local residents to help us draw up a map of ‘problem areas’. The following month we held our first meeting with a representative of Dumfries & Galloway Council’s Infrastructure & Transportation Department. He outlined all the work carried out to date regarding a revision of the speed limit in Moniaive, and kindly supplied us with some technical data to help us progress our ideas. Throughout 2017 we continued to gather evidence from local residents, and were pleased to see that many local residents supported us by displaying our “20mph” posters in their windows. With help from the Primary School, we created our ‘Wee Laddie’ (go-slow scarecrow), who was then moved around the various entrances to the village, to remind drivers to slow down.
In early October 2017 we carried out two Community Street Audits, with the help of some local volunteers, including the Junior Road Safety Officers and P7 Class from Moniaive Primary. We issued a draft report on our findings in November 2017. Our partnership work with Living Streets finished at the end of 2017. You can read their final report here:
Living Streets Report — Moniaive_Mar18
In 2018 we worked with parents from Moniaive Primary School to improve safety on Chapel Street during the school run. This led to the launch of local consultation on timber waggon transit, and following a survey (70 votes in favour, 9 against) resulted in a successful negotiation with the Timber Forum to impose a TIME RESTRICTION on passage of timber waggons at school entrance and school exit times. If you notice timber waggons transiting the village during the restricted times (8.50am-9.20am and 3.00pm-3.30pm) please contact us with details (time, date, and registration or haulier name) and we will report it to the Transport Forum, with a reminder to the haulier of why the restriction is in place. Our aim is to build on the success of the existing restriction in Dunreggan, without creating a disproportionate impact on this important local industry.
Meanwhile, discussions continued with Dumfries & Galloway Council, and during the summer of 2020 work was finally completed on our 20mph zone. Although Moniaive Initiative are of course not responsible for enforcement of this new speed limit, we do aim to continue our campaign to educate drivers on the importance of sticking to the speed limit, to make Moniaive a safer and a more pleasant place live, work and visit.
Remember: PLEASE GO SLOW through Moniaive!
At Home – a Heritage Project
In Spring 2021, Moniaive Initiative collaborated on a new heritage project with Jackie and Chris Lee of Moniaive-based Artemis Scotland, which specialises in heritage interpretation. In the immediate aftermath of the COVID pandemic, we created a community-led heritage project to highlight HOME, and shared the results by turning the street-facing windows of Moniaive into an open air museum.
We asked participants to become ‘heritage detectives’ to uncover the stories of their homes. We asked them to find what is special about the places they live in, and to uncover stories about their homes and the people who once lived there. We helped by providing regular blogs, giving guidance on how and where to start looking for more information. We also created extra street-wide information, using census returns to give a wider picture of village life.
The residents of Moniaive then created window displays for the May Bank Holiday weekend, turning the village into a mini museum, as their displays became part of a trail around the village. Some offered ‘spare’ windows to those outside the village, to encourage wider participation. All the participating windows were given a large project logo sticker, so that everyone would know which windows they were welcome to look in. We asked that participants consider privacy and security issues when sharing their stories, by not referencing living persons, or sharing photos of them or their homes, without their express permission.
Alongside this, we also created three new Heritage Walk leaflets, highlighting some of the lesser-know landmarks on each of the trails. These were updated and reprinted in 2024. Paper copies are available from The Hive.
Securing Our Future
Moniaive Initiative was funded from 2020 to 2023 by the Scottish Government’s Investing in Communities fund, primarily to carry out wide-ranging community consultation to identify key challenges in our community, and to develop projects and local interaction that could help address those challenges. This work resulted in the creation of the Glencairn & Moniaive Action Plan 2022-27.
While this consultation process was ongoing, we continued to support other local groups and organisations to complete their own development projects, and bring forward ideas for new ones. These included:
Glencairn Memorial Institute – Upgrades to the main community hall in Glencairn, including building and roof repairs, electrical and fire safety upgrades, and installation of a new heating / hot water system.
Moniaive Playcare – Expansion of premises into a neighbouring building, Corrie Doon, to enable them to offer more comprehensive, wraparound childcare provision.
Glencairn Land & Woods Trust – Organisational and Governance improvements, to prepare the organisation for future asset transfer projects. The aspiration is to eventually create Glencairn’s first community woodland.
moniaiveinitiative.org.uk 