CAMPSIE GLEN WOODLAND CIC

Phone: 07918624290
Address: Campsie Glen CIC Woodland and Waterfalls
Car Park in the Sky
Clachan of Campsie
G66 7AD

Campsie Glen is a woodland of 32 acres. Six individuals came together to form Campside Glen Woodland CIC which is purchasing the land to preserve it as a community space and develop is potential in education, forest schools and outdoor pursuits and activities. The six individuals have developed experience managing such entities via the experience from the Children’s Wood (CW) in Glasgow North Kelvin Meadow.

The six have loaned Campsie Glen CIC £75,000 to cover the cost of purchase of the land and an initial operating period to start the engine for the Community Interest Company to develop the land in the spirit of community development in line with a CW ethos.

Our aim for the Wood is to strike a balance between maintaining and enhancing the natural beauty of the area, in alignment with its conservation area status and the strong place it has in Glaswegian's hearts, and providing much needed educational, upskilling and green/ecological development opportunities for young people generally, but particularly for disadvantaged youth from the North Glasgow area.  We hope that the Wood will become a show-case or beacon for what can be achieved more broadly across the Campsies, providing an increased range of employment and amenity opportunities that are fully in harmony with the natural environment and landscape.

Our team has a track record of success in this kind of endeavour.  Over a period of 10 years we have all been involved in the preservation of a small patch of greenspace in the West End of Glasgow.  Our primary driver was to show people across the West and North of Glasgow what was possible, to engage them with personal and community activities on the land, and to engender a sense of ownership and love for it.  We are inclusive, having set up a youth club for highly disaffected young people in the Maryhill area, and we are making great strides, working with local organisations such as the police, the Violence Reduction
Unit, local businesses, and youth social work, in improving their life chances.  The charity running all this now has around 10 employees.

We envisage activities in the lower area, nearest to the local community, to be limited to improvements in the quality of land and support of the current recreational activities, building up our capabilities working in partnership with local youth and outdoor learning organisations to deliver project-based improvements.  This could include limited forest school and forest school training activities.  Our focus here is very much on upskilling opportunities for local
youths within the greater Glasgow area, to take responsibility and ownership, overseen by experienced workers.  

In the middle area, we again foresee ongoing land management needs in the short term, but are keen to include more explicit sustainable woodland management activities, as well as the opportunity to showcase sustainable and ecological technologies. We envisage a limited catering offering in the car park for those enjoying the Wood, the Falls and/or the walk up onto the Campsie Hills.  In the longer term, we will explore the inclusion of paths into the upper area, and the possibility of limited outward bound style activities there.

In summary, the foregoing provides a broad overview of our intention with respect to the land - run by a charity or community interest company, to provide conservation where appropriate, and equally, sustainable ecological development in other areas, providing a wide range of upskilling opportunities with some employment opportunities for local youth, and at all times with consideration for the local community.

Facilities: Cafe, Volunteering, Wildlife area
Open to the public? No
Open to the public - details:
Accessible? No
Has livestock? No