Who speaks for Govanhill? The quiet power of community councils
Govanhill’s community council may not draw crowds, but it’s where real local change begins. From tackling fly-tipping to holding the city accountable, these monthly meetings give residents a voice. Here’s everything you need to know about your community council.
Words and photos by Laura Vroomen | Illustration by Gosia Kepka
How do you spend your Monday evenings? Judging by the number of empty chairs in the Neighbourhood Centre on Daisy Street on 8 September, it’s probably not at the monthly Crosshill and Govanhill Community Council (CGCC) meeting.
Maybe you didn’t know it was happening. Maybe the thought of two hours discussing fly-tipping and street litter doesn’t sound appealing. But by staying away, you are missing out on a chance to have a real say in how to make this community a fairer, cleaner, and more connected place to live.
So what exactly is a community council – and why does it matter if nobody shows up?
Community councils are the official interface between Glasgow City Council and the community. That means they represent local residents’ views and concerns to the council and share information from the council and other bodies with the wider community.
Community councils must meet certain criteria as outlined in the Glasgow City Council Scheme of Establishment for Community Councils (2018). These include having a minimum of ten elected members (currently there are only nine on CGCC) and holding seven meetings a year.
The Scottish Community Council Framework also states that these elected members are expected to represent all people in an area and should therefore be ‘non-party political and non-sectarian’ and ‘represent a full cross-section of the community and encourage the involvement of people regardless of gender, race, age, disability, nationality or sexual orientation.’ If it fails to meet set conditions, it can be disbanded and the community loses its voice.
CGCC covers Queen's Drive to Butterbiggins Road and Victoria Road to Aitkenhead Road (the streets on the other side of Victoria Road are covered by Shawlands & Strathbungo Community Council).
Each meeting follows an agenda that is shared in advance – with time set aside for action points and matters arising from the previous month’s meeting, as well as reports from the police, the local MP and city councillors (either in-person or via a representative) and updates from the community councillors responsible for issues such as planning and licensing.
Members of the public can comment throughout, but are invited to raise their own issues at the end of the meeting. At the CGCC meeting in September, I was disappointed to find myself one of only three members of the public to attend.
Losing our community voice
Glasgow may have just celebrated 50 years of community councils, but Glasgow Live recently published results of a Freedom of Information request showing that 18 community councils across the city have dissolved since 2008 – most of those in the past decade. While ten have been formed since 2020 (mostly in more affluent areas), many parts of Glasgow remain unrepresented.
During my two years living in Govanhill, I have become aware that, while for the most part everybody rubs along just fine, there are tensions – with some communities getting blamed for all manner of problems that impact the neighbourhood.
For example, while attending community meetings organised by Govanhill Housing Association, I have heard some residents point the finger at ‘foreign’ residents, when in reality a lot of problems – especially around fly-tipping and messy streets – are caused by rogue landlords and businesses dumping waste.
So how can a community council help combat this?
Inside the Govanhill and Crosshill Community Council
To find out what CGCC has done – and can do – for the community, I sat down with Marion Nisbet and Damian Tausney, who have served as community councillors for over a decade. They are just two of the volunteers who are currently representing our neighbourhood.
Both have seen a decline in attendance over the years, citing the pandemic, apathy, frustration and language issues as possible reasons. Meeting minutes from before lockdown certainly suggest that the public used to attend in greater numbers.
Serving as a council member is a serious time investment. As the vice-chair, treasurer and councillor responsible for licensing, Damian explains that a role which on paper should take approximately four hours a week can easily take ten. In addition to the meetings themselves, time is spent on communication with city councillors, lots of emailing, reading reports and reporting local issues.
Both Marion and Damian note that progress can be slow, especially when it involves legislation. It can be months, if not longer, before an issue that is brought to the council’s attention is resolved or finally comes to fruition. By then, people may have moved on, frustrated or worn down by the lack of progress.
Accountability, representation and barriers
Accountability is a word that frequently pops up in my conversation with Marion. She feels that over the years, city officials and council departments have slowly removed themselves from the community, perhaps conscious that there is little they can do as Glasgow’s budget has shrunk.
As a result, problems such as fly-tipping and badly maintained streets have worsened. Marion feels that the community council is instrumental in holding Glasgow City Council to account and forcing them to engage with the area. But for that, she says, we need more people at the table: “The more of the community we have, the louder our voice can be.”
While work and family commitments will inevitably be a barrier for some, providing better information could be a first step towards attracting more people. Flyers and a social media presence could help bring more people in. However, councillors are already stretched when it comes to their time and resources. Community councils could also provide young people who have served in the Scottish Youth Parliament with a rewarding route to take their involvement in politics forward.
Marion, meanwhile, is in the process of securing equipment to deal with the Neighbourhood Centre’s poor acoustics so that nobody with a hearing impairment is excluded.
Representation is another challenge. At present, CGCC is overwhelmingly white – something both Damian and Marion recognise as problematic in a neighbourhood as ethnically diverse as ours. Reaching out to community leaders and organisations from all sections of society and encouraging them and others in their community to join is essential.
Having representatives of all communities in the same room, to challenge prejudice and misinformation, and to jointly come up with solutions, could go some way to bolstering social cohesion in the area.
What’s been achieved and what more can be done
There is still a lot of work to be done, but both community councillors I spoke to are proud of what they have achieved in CGCC. Damian highlights the recent pavement repairs on Cathcart Road and the gully cleaning on Allison Street. Marion mentions improvements to the way issues are reported to Glasgow City Council (previously only one issue could be reported each day, but now it’s unlimited) and the Calder Street Oasis – a tree-planting project involving local schools.
Personally, I am delighted to see that following campaigning by CGCC and Govanhill Housing Association a particularly messy part of Bankhall Street is looking much better.
Going forward, cleansing remains high on the agenda, as do efforts to address problem parking. But these issues can only be successfully tackled if, as Damian puts it, the community comes together to “campaign as a collective”.
How to make your voice heard
CGCC meetings are usually held on the second Monday of each month, from 7-8.45pm, at the Neighbourhood Centre on Daisy Street. The next meeting is on Monday 10 November.
If you miss a community council meeting, the minutes can be found both in Govanhill Library and on crosshillandgovanhill.org.uk. While the website is currently being updated, the most recent minutes can usually be accessed at the Govanhill Library.
CGCC has also joined forces with Govanhill Housing Association in organising walkabouts in the neighbourhood on the Tuesday morning after a meeting that anyone can join. They set off from Samaritan House on Coplaw Street at 10am. These are aimed at identifying problems which can then be addressed. The clear-up of Bankhall Street came out of this initiative – proving that turning up really does make a difference.