Growing hope in Glasgow's most isolated community

I’m standing in a polytunnel covered in rips, slashes and holes, some of which have been patched up, other bits are flapping away in the wind. It’s the second year in a row there’s been vandalism here at St Paul’s Youth Forum (SPYF) in the Blackhill/Provanmill area in the city’s north east. When Sasha Roberton, the grower here, turned up one July morning, she found many of the plants had also been pulled out of the ground and killed. 

“It's quite disheartening,” Roberton says, “but also, I just don’t think it’s malicious”. Given this is the second occurrence in as many years, one might see this as naive. Spend a short while here though, and it strikes as the response of a charity deeply embedded in the community. The people at St Paul’s know the folks here deserve better than they’ve been meted out by the city over successive generations — no matter how hard up, pent up or fed up they might find themselves. 

I point out a larger hole at the back of the polytunnel. “That was a smaller hole, then the kids played a game running through it,” she says with a big laugh. “People often come and hang out here when the gates aren’t open. It’s great, they take their rubbish away. It’s a good thing, it should be a space for that.”

Roberton is part of Blackhill’s Growing, a community group which has been growing food in the area since 2010. I ask how she felt the morning she came to the grow site that morning. “What are you going to do, sometimes it happens,” comes the prepared response. Did you cry, I ask. “No I never cry,” she says, but the look in her eyes says otherwise. “It’s always a possibility to grow and continue, working with people and building on how people want us to involve them more, how people want to use the space more, how it can feel more like something that belongs to everyone,” she explains. They had been fearful that the polytunnels might fall victim to an arson attack — the community centre in the area burnt down in 2001 — so she’s taking this small act of vandalism as a win. 

The site is two acres, with two large polytunnels, one in active use. They’ve been working on the site for three years, but only planted for the first time at the end of May after they managed to get water piped in. “Very late in the year,” she explains. There are a number of raised beds, with tatties, kale, summer and winter cabbage, and cauliflower. Inside the first polytunnel, there are tomatoes, chillies, peppers, cucumbers and basil. She points to some colourful benches behind us, built in conjunction with HMP Barlinnie, just south of here, but separated by the snaking M8. “That swingseat is so popular,” she says. 

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A big part of the frustration Roberton’s feeling about this recent bit of vandalism is that the charity’s youth work team has been unable to work proactively with whoever did it. Last year, they were quickly able to establish who was behind it, and for the past year have been working with them. The young person was struggling at the time, and didn’t feel like they had ownership of what was going on at Blackhill’s Growing. Since then, they are now feeling better and more involved in the project. They’ve been working with the youth work team, planting seeds, feeding the chickens and harvesting eggs. 

“Every team has been part of working with the [person] who this happened with last year, and that’s been really positive,” she explains. “What we're trying to do here is make it so that it’s everyone's space, so that it doesn't feel like you're breaking in because it is your space to be in. Even though we have had instances of vandalism over the last two years … we do just want people to be hanging out in here and feeling like it’s their space.” This time around, what they’ve heard is that whoever did it isn’t from the area.