How to… revive a town centre through crafts

The murder of a young design student kickstarted the regeneration of West Kilbride. Using crafts as a focus to bring pride back to the community has put the village firmly on the map, as Susan Downer explains

Step back into the 1990s and the village of West Kilbride on the west coast of Scotland was dying. More than half of its 40 shops were closed, the population which had traditionally stood at around 5,000 had shrunk to 4,200 and young people who’d left to work or study saw no reason to return. Despite being situated just a few minutes off the A78 linking Greenock in the north and Prestwick in the south, passers-by passed it by and even its well-heeled inhabitants chose to spend their money elsewhere. The once thriving village was giving up on itself.

Then, in January 1995, a young design student was murdered. The local politician and councillors called a public meeting to find ways to stem the decline and the seeds of West Kilbride Community Initiative Limited (WKCIL) were sown. WKCIL was formally established as a charity and company limited by guarantee in 1998. Its aim was to lift the appearance of the village and use crafts as a catalyst for its revival.

But its ambitions soon hit the rocks. For three years it struggled to find money to buy empty properties on the high street. North Ayrshire Council said no. Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire said no. The Arts Council said no. Every major funder had other priorities or simply weren’t convinced by the idea.

‘There was nothing happening, no support,’ says Maggie Broadley, creative executive of Craft Town Scotland, one of the charity’s operational arms. But despite all the setbacks, the group maintained its focus and unfaltering community support.

‘This was community led right from the beginning,’ Ms Broadley adds. ‘Just a group of people committed to not giving up and not accepting that there was no hope for the town and their ambitions for it. We chose our unique selling point and stuck to it despite all the difficulties. At every road block the group managed to move forward and get back to the direction of travel.’

WKCIL established an environmental group and set about mobilising volunteers to make the place look better. It brightened up the streets with hanging baskets and raised money from environmental trusts to purchase a disused quarry. The quarry is now home to a greenhouse, polytunnels and community gardens. WKCIL has since bought two fields in an area known as The Glen, adding a community orchard and wildflower meadow to its environmental portfolio.

This early work was an important step in WKCIL’s development as it showed Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire that the group was focused, determined and had the ability to move the project on.

‘If you work with the community and are honest and look at what the community needs you can begin to look at funders that can help deliver what the community wants.’

It took another stride forward when the Moffat Charitable Trust bought and refurbished two properties and offered them as craft studios for a peppercorn rent: rent it has never collected.

In 2002, after a year of operating these studios, MKCIL approached Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire with a revised five year plan and proof that it could succeed. Its core vision remained the same.

‘If you work with the community and are honest and look at what the community needs you can begin to look at funders that can help deliver what the community wants with a bit of compromise. We have not bent what we have been doing to our funders,’ Ms Broadley adds.

Barony Church in West Kilbride

This time, the agency offered a four year package of funding worth £115,000. However, the money had to be matched from other sources before it could be drawn down. Weekly furniture sales supported by raffles, a jazz night and small grants from organisations including Airtricity and British Nuclear helped WKCIL raise £134,000. The resulting funds were used to buy the rundown Barony Church which hadn’t been used for religious services since 1970 and to pay Craft Town Scotland’s first creative executive.

It took another seven years to secure £1m in capital and revenue funding from Big Lottery Scotland to rebuild the church and find the match funding. The new building finally opened in May as the Barony Centre (pictured right) comprising an exhibition space, shop, cafe and spaces for workshops and a resident artist.

These days there isn’t much talk about the UFO sightings that once made West Kilbride one of Britain’s favourite alien travel destinations. Drivers on the A78 are instead directed towards West Kilbride by distinctive brown tourism signs and the population is once again close to 5,000.

Residents now have every reason to be proud of the village.  In place of the closed shops, there are nine studios including a silversmith, embroidery specialist and a business offering fashion and sewing workshops run by a mixture of keen amateurs and people with international reputations.

There’s an award-winning bridal outfitter which attracts people from across the UK, a mother of the bride shop, a children’s clothing shop, a deli, a book shop and a florist as well as the butcher and baker celebrated in lore, a pub and a bistro. People live above or next to the shops so the area isn’t deserted when they are closed.

The future is about expanding the evening economy, getting young people involved and working closely with schools. It is about consolidation and being free of dependence on grants so that Craft Town Scotland will never again find itself in the position of being without funding for the creative executive’s post, as they recently were when Scottish Enterprise funding dried up.

‘We look to break even but salaries are difficult to get funding for. We generate a lot of our own income, for example from subsidised rental from the studios, but would like to generate more so we don’t have to rely on grant funding for salaries and can afford to maintain the properties.’

It’s taken patience and focus but West Kilbride is an example of how the fortunes of a village or town can be turned around.

‘You would not believe the difference in the high street now,’ Ms Broadley says. ‘Businesses are working to draw things together, lots of young women are establishing businesses here and young families are coming back. If we keep going and meeting the needs of the community that is the reward for this.’

• For more information visit crafttownscotland.org