Making the Community Woodland More Accessible

Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council expresses its thanks to local resident, Ian Gibson, for his idea to upgrade Sandford’s Community Woodland. A partnership between Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council, Sandford in Bloom and Ian has resulted in funding of £22,000 being secured to make the Sandford Community Woodland more accessible to everyone.

In October 2020, Ian approached Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council with an idea to make some improvements to the Sandford Community Woodland at the North of the Village. The Sandford Community Woodland is an area of amenity land which was planted around 20 years ago. The area is well used and, in addition to the woodland, there is access to a community allotment and outdoor learning spaces for the Wild about Sandford programme of activities.

The improvements proposed include upgrading the paths in the community woodland to make more suitable for all. Improvements will include new owl boxes which will make the area more attractive to those interested in nature and birdwatching. New benches will provide stopping points on the route through the woodland and a new welcome/entrance sign.

Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council, Sandford in Bloom and Ian put together the funding applications. Applications were submitted to the Banks Kype Muir Community Partnership and the South Lanarkshire Council Renewable Energy Fund. Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council is delighted to announce that £12,000 has been secured from the Kype Muir Community Partnership and £10,000 has been secured from the Renewable Energy Fund.

SUACC welcomes these improvements and looks forward to seeing the completed works. The improvement work is due to start in February 2021 and will be complete by Summer 2021.
To enable the works to take place, there may be some restrictions in order to allow safe working.

If you are interested in helping SUACC improve our community or if you have any ideas that you would like to share, please get in touch with us by emailing sandfordanduacc@gmail.com or you can view our Community Action plan on our website Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council (suacc.com).

Online meetings to start from March 2021

Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council

In line with new South Lanarkshire Council guidelines on community councils, Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council (SUACC) confirmed that it plans to resume meetings online using Zoom.

The move is in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has made it difficult for meetings to be held because the existing guidelines said that members had to be physically present and proceedings had to be open for both the public and media to attend. 

As community councils could not meet these conditions safely, a public consultation was held to help decide the best way forward. The consultation found considerable support for allowing community councils to hold meetings virtually. 

Amendments to the South Lanarkshire Scheme of Establishment of Community Councils were then agreed at a special meeting of South Lanarkshire Council on Wednesday 16 December, allowing meetings to be held either in person or online. 

As with other community councils, SUACC has continued to discuss urgent issues by email, telephone and online since meetings stopped at the start of 2020, and has continued to take and consider applications for both Micro Grants and Kype Muir Community Fund throughout the last year.  A number of organisations have been successful in their bids and projects have been able to complete through funding being approved.

The first online meeting of SUACC will be on a date to be confirmed in March 2021 and meeting details will be published on the SUACC website.

Sandford and Upper Avondale CC joins ‘Working together for Avondale’

Sandford and Upper Avondale Community Council was delighted to be able to join with the ‘Working together for Avondale’ group to offer community support across our communities.

This has meant that free meals have been delivered on Sundays by Outreach Community Church to local people shielding and self-isolating, art kits have been delivered to local primary children and mindfulness sessions have been offered to adults, adolescents and families.