ADT have no website of their own yet so we are continuing to include their news with ours.
ADT has a Sustainable Development Compliance Letter from the Scottish government, so can apply to purchase neglected/ abandoned/detrimental property and ask for government help through Community Right to Buy and grants etc. We would like the ex-Affleck Common Good land from South Ayrshire Council by Asset Transfer (CAT), or a lease. All this is very complex anyway but further issues arise, like traffic accessing the land from High Street and exiting into Sandgate. We hope to be able to work our way through this.
The idea is to begin to provide facilities which folk need or which would foster the community. The first project we are thinking about is a Social Centre using Carrick Street Halls as the model. We could call it Hope St. Hall?
Facilities for older people could be five days a week with evenings and weekends for other age groups. We think that two of the Fish Cross shops could be good as they have large ground floor spaces, necessary for older people or those with mobility issues. There is ex-Affleck land behind which could allow essential adaptations, access, a garden and parking and drop-off. The upstairs could be used for an office, storage etc, and the one excess flat could be rented social housing (via a LHA) which would be a small income stream. Excess land not used for the centre could be public parking, again a small income stream.
Possible Centre: Hope Street Hall?
Another possible project for the future could be the building on the site of a very old prison, Laigh Tolbooth and is across from Marks & Spencer in Ayr High Street, with latticed windows and a "pokey hat" roof., with also next door, formerly TSB. It might be possible to have a People’s Story Museum about working people's lives, their working conditions, their fight for their rights of which there has been plenty in Ayrshire. We have the Fenwick Weavers with the first UK communal food-buying and selling at cost for the villagers formed in 1760's, with its credit union, its library where workers could learn to read and on at least one learned so much he became Astronomer to George IV. We already have Robert Burns and Keir Hardie telling the tale but there are so many more unknown Ayrshire heroes.
We need more practical public support and members, particularly those living in Area KA7 1. Soon we will need a Task Force for each projects to ensure things are done as local people want but also as a management committee to take over and run each facility.
This could be exciting for Ayr. We are only at the early stages. We are applying for our first grant, a Scottish Land Fund 1st Stage Grant to pay for a Feasibility Study of the buildings. We need to consolidate our membership and now that the initial administrative structures are in place, to involve as many people as we can in the organisation.
Possible People’s Story Museum as a next project.
If you would like to join ADT, email, phone or write for an Application Form and return it by post or email. Please give your postcode.
Thanks, Esther,
2 Ronaldshaw Park,
Ayr,
KA7 2TJ.
01292 263534.