Scotland Today -> The Big Issue -> On the up and up
The
£230 million poured into Glasgow's Castlemilk estate is simply money
down the drain, say residents. And for many of them the area's
regeneration slogan – on the up and up – has a rather hollow ring
By Liam McDougall
A regeneration plan hailed as a model of the future for deprived communities has been branded a failure following investigation by The Big Issue in Scotland.
Our probe into the Government-backed development of the Castlemilk estate in Glasgow has uncovered evidence which some residents and health worker believe shows that the 10-year strategy has abandoned the very people it was meant to help.
Since 1988, when the Castlemilk Partnership - a coalition of public and private agencies and community groups, led by the Scottish office - was formed, more than £230 million has been spent trying to breathe new life into the area.
At the time, Castlemilk was the largest of four areas in Scotland earmarked for priority funding. The strategy was held up by the then-director of public health, GD Forwell, as the template for poor health in other deprived areas of Glasgow.
The Partnership pledged to reduce poverty; focus on the needs of young people and develop high-quality health and social care.
But residents and welfare experts with links to Castlemilk have described the high-profile programme as nothing more than a 'cosmetic exercise'.
The Scottish Office was due to produce its final evaluation of the Castlemilk strategy this month. It Is now understood-the report may not be released until October-and will not be as detailed as planned.
But following the end of the original strategy, The Big Issue has obtained a series of statistics which detail the desperate situation of people in Castlemilk.
Figures from Glasgow City Council show that last year almost 87 per cent of all schoolchildren in the area were eligible for clothing grants, while nearly 70 percent received free school meals - both figures higher than those for Pollok, Govan and the Gorbals, which were not targeted as Partnership areas. Eighty-five percent of Castlemilk's population survive on benefits.
Our findings also highlight an unintended irony in the slogan for Castlemilk - 'On the up and up'.
In 10 years, despite massive public funding, Scottish Office figures show incidences of stress-related health problems have shot up.
They show that Castlemilk has experienced an increase in liver disease and cirrhosis deaths, drug dependence deaths and purposely inflicted deaths. Female cancer deaths and overall female deaths have also increased, while the area has had a rise in male suicides.
The Partnership's recent Public Health Review found that people in Castlemilk are more likely to die before the age of 65 than those living in other areas of Glasgow. Leading killers were lung cancer, strokes and respiratory disease.
And according to records from the St Margaret Mary's parish - one of the largest in the scheme – deaths of those aged between birth and 44 have more than doubled over the last 10 years.
In 1990, the creation of the Castlemilk Economic Development Agency(CEDA) by the Partnership was supposed to increase the prosperity of Castlemilk's residents by building a strong local economy. Although it claims to have helped levels of unemployment in Castlemilk fall to around four per cent above the Scottish average, its critics question the quality of jobs generated and their effect on poverty.
They have also expressed concern over the Partnership's accountability after it was found that at least three representatives to the board had been replaced just weeks before the Scottish Office's final evaluation was to be released.
Yet Partnership member organisations still laud the decade-long social experiment as a success.
Andrew Fyfe, the executive director of the Glasgow Alliance partnership organisation - which has now taken over from the Scottish Office - said the handover marked a new chapter in the "continued regeneration of the area".
A recent press statement from Alliance member Scottish Homes read: "The work done in the past decade will continue, with the new partners in the Glasgow Alliance enthusiastically looking forward to building on the successes of the original Castlemilk Partnership."
However, Stephen Kelly, 34, who has lived in Castlemilk all his life, says he's still waiting to be included in the "successes of the original Partnership".
He believes that the regeneration process has compounded his feelings of isolation- and fuelled a serious alcohol addiction which has left his health and job prospects in tatters.
And he says that as his own physical and mental health has declined, he has watched his friends killed through drink, drugs or suicide.
"People like me haven't gained anything from regeneration," he says. "They have moved the people from their own small communities within Castlemilk into other areas of the scheme where they don't know anyone and they don't feel safe. People are juggled about and are being left isolated and under stress."
Another resident, who asked not to be named, says the 10-year process has made him feel like an outcast in his own community. At just 33 he suffers from crippling health problems, which he says has helped turn him into an alcoholic who is now unemployable.
"I feel as though I'm an outsider looking in," he says angrily. "Nobody wants to give us a hand. They said they would - but they didn't. Now you can see it in the younger generation, the 16 and 17-year-olds. They've got nothing to look forward to.
"There is a perception that Castlemilk has done well out of the strategy. If you didn't come from the area, the new houses would look nice - but this is the reality."
From the front window of his decaying flat, where graffiti from the local gangs fills the common close and bashed metal covers line his neighbours' burnt-out windows, he sees the smart, pastel-coloured, newly built houses look back at him from across the street. Outside the rear window, rows of black railings trap rubbish blown by the wind.
"If you are out of work, have an addiction or are a criminal, you are likely to end up in the poorest areas here," the 33-year-old adds.
"It is a form of cleansing. It's as though they are waiting for us to kill ourselves or each other. In an area like the Mitchellhill flats, the only people that feel safe are the drug dealers who control the place.
"If you go there and your face isn't known around the area, whatever you have is stolen from you. Being forced to live like that, you just hit the booze or drugs and try to blank it all out."
Other residents have accused the regeneration partnership of carrying out a policy of social dumping. They claim that those who pledged to regenerate the area have instead created ghettos filled with the poorest and most vulnerable in the community - those who the strategy was designed to help.
CEDA's satellite agencies - into which millions are pumped each year to help with job creation and training - are found throughout the Castlemilk area. But professionals working to improve the health and welfare of the population say that progress in areas like child care and addiction is being undone by the "parochial" economic aims of the regeneration programme. Many also blame the economic policies for the area's spiralling social problems.
"They seem to believe that if they find someone a job then they automatically tease to be socially excluded," one health worker said. "The jobs that these people are getting, by definition, make them socially excluded.
"lf you're just coming off drugs, you're not going to get a well-paid job with a permanent contract. You begin to ask yourself, 'Who's kidding who?"'
A poverty expert, who didn't want to be named, believes the regeneration strategy is fundamentally flawed.
"There is nothing to suggest that people's lifestyIes have got better in Castlemilk, "he argued. "The whole thing has been a cosmetic exercise. It's clearly not working."
Eleven years after the strategy's launch, the Castlemilk Partnership is still looking for ways to reduce poverty and improve health in the area. Today, the same search for solutions is outlined in the Health in Castlemilk Strategic Action Plan, produced – again - by the publicly funded Partnership.
Castlemilk Umbrella Group spokesman Pat Bonar - whose group represents the community and sits on the Partnership board - admits that the strategy "has been a disappointment," but says: "There are still a lot of agencies working hard to look at problems of health and poverty in Castlemilk."
Alex Rodden, manager of the Partnership, had been in place for only four weeks when she spoke to The Big Issue. "what we want to be is very honest, and I'm not in this game to pull the wool over anybody's eyes," she said.
"The bottom line for the Partnership is people and quality of life in Castlemilk. What we are trying to create is a holistic approach, not just about housing or just about health, and focus on what needs to be done. There is definitely more to be done - but there is a lot that has already been achieved."