Following notification of a Community Asset Transfer (CAT) request in relation to Ralston
Community Sports Centre (RCSC) published on Tuesday 31st of May 2022, a total of 2941
representations were received by Renfrewshire Council by the end date for representations of 1st July.

The CAT request, submitted by Kelburne Hockey and Community Sports Club, is for a long-term
lease of the sports centre and playing fields for the purpose of redeveloping the sports centre to
provide a wider range of sports and activities, extend the opening hours of the centre and to create an all level hockey pitch.

Within the total representations, 272 were received by post or into the CAT mailbox on or before
the 1st of July. This figure included 31 representations that did not provide a full address; 6 that did not state if they were in favour or against the CAT request; and 27 representations that did not provide any reason for why they either supported or rejected the CAT request. 1263 signed letters were delivered to the council on 1st July and are included in the total and breakdown of
representations. A further 1406 signatures were provided in the form of petitions. These have
been included in the total but are not included in the breakdown.

The total number of representations received excluding petitions was 1535. Of these, 118 (7.7%) are in favour of the CAT and 1417 (92.3%) are against.

A breakdown of the representations can be found on the Renfrewshire Council website.

The CAT application will be considered by Renfrewshire Council’s ILE Policy Board at either its August or its November meeting. More details can be found in the previous news item.

 

Kelburne Hockey Club’s application for a community asset transfer (CAT) of Ralston Sports Centre to the club will be considered by Renfrewshire Council’s Infrastructure, Land and Environment (ILE) Policy Board at either its August or its November meeting. These meetings will be held in the council chambers in Cotton Street at 1 pm on Wednesday 24 August and Wednesday 2 November. The agendas for the meetings are published a week in advance, and we will not know until the agenda for the August meeting is published which meeting will consider the application. We will publish a post on the website as soon as we know which meeting will be considering the application.

Details of the ILE Policy Board meetings can be found on the Renfrewshire Council website.

As there are only 60 places in the public seating area of the chambers, you are advised to arrive well in advance of the starting time if you wish to attend the meeting. The meeting will be live streamed and you can watch it from the following link:

https://renfrewshire.public-i.tv/core/portal/home

 

Scottish Water issued the following message with advice on the current heatwave on Monday 18 July.

As you will all be aware, many parts of Scotland are expected to see record high temperatures during the course of tomorrow, following on from very warm weather today and in recent days.

Scottish Water teams have been preparing and are working hard across the country to support customers and communities that are impacted by the hot weather. As ever, if there is a service issue affecting customers, Scottish Water can be contacted 24/7 via any of the details at www.scottishwater.co.uk/help-and-resources/contact-us/contacting-us.  If there are issues that you need to raise on behalf of the communities you represent, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team and we will do all we can to assist.

Stay hydrated and stay safe

Our primary focus today and tomorrow is on alerting customers in areas that are experiencing very hot weather to the importance of hydration in staying safe.

Our Your Water Your Life campaign, supported by our growing network of Top up Taps across the country, encourages people to enjoy Scotland’s drinking water – including by carrying a refillable water bottle when they are out and about.

Whether topping up at home, at work, at a local business or from a Top up Tap, we know that having access to drinking water is especially important in these conditions. Staying hydrated is essential – and using a refillable water bottle also saves money and helps the environment.

How you can help

Reducing unnecessary water use

We’re urging people across the country to help maintain normal water supplies by reducing unnecessary water use, especially outdoors.

Even before the current hot weather arrived, over the second weekend in July customers used an additional 200 million litres in their homes and gardens – the equivalent of 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools more than normal.

Everyone can take care of drinking water for its most important purpose and protect the environment by:

  • Using a watering can or water butt instead of a garden hose / sprinkler – hoses can use 1000 litres per hour (equivalent of 12 baths)
  • Watering plants early in the morning or later in the evening – and avoiding watering lawns which recover quickly from dry weather
  • Using a bucket and sponge rather than a hose / jet washer to wash the car
  • Avoiding filling up large paddling pools which can take thousands of litres – as well as re-using any water in them where you can

How you can help

Respect our reservoirs – and know the risks

Alongside our emergency services and other partners, we know that these conditions significantly increase the risk of serious water safety incidents around our coasts and inland – including at many of the reservoirs that we look after.

In the hottest weather, the hazards of deep, cold water are easily underestimated – but even the strongest swimmers can be affected by cold water shock.  There is a lot of research showing that we are all prone to thinking that it won’t happen to us, but tragically it does happen. We work all year round with Water Safety Scotland and a wide range of organisations to raise awareness; as well as with our long term partners Scottish Swimming to making young people aware of the risks and give them basic survival skills.

How you can help

 

Renfrewshire Council launched its Not Far? Leave the Car campaign in March 2022 as part of its commitment to active travel and its drive to meet its climate change aims. The campaign rewards people in Renfrewshire for walking, cycling and using public transport, with discounts and prizes at local Renfrewshire businesses. It is being provided through the free BetterPoints app and has been funded by the Scottish Government.

The campaign now has more than 750 members, and you are encouraged to sign up if you haven’t done so already and to encourage others across Renfrewshire to take part. In addition to the normal discounts and prizes, everyone who records a journey before the end of July will be entered into a draw to win a £15 voucher at Nomads’ Coffee Shop in Paisley.

More details of the campaign and a link to allow the app to be downloaded can be found on Renfrewshire Council’s website.

 

As part of its drive to transform Paisley town centre, Renfrewshire Council has developed plans to enhance walking, cycling and public transport connections for residents, businesses and visitors on Causeyside Street.

The council is looking to provide a safe, appealing cycle connection between Paisley Canal and Paisley Gilmour train stations, which connects into the popular National Cycle Route 7 which heads west to Johnstone and Ayr and east to Glasgow.

The council says that the proposed improvements would create a more attractive, safer public space for active travel and would provide convenient connections to public transport facilities while ensuring it retains the reflection of the town’s heritage in the bespoke pavements and carved references to Paisley’s industrial past.

The council is sharing the concept designs and asking for feedback through an online survey at www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/CauseysideStreetSurvey.

Members of the project team will be visiting all businesses on Causeyside Street in-person to discuss the plans and answer any questions, as well as being available for the public every Wednesday and Friday from 12pm-2pm at 5A High Street, Paisley during the engagement period (11 July – 7 August).

On Friday 1 June, Ralston Community Council submitted nearly 1200 letters of objection to the proposed community asset transfer (CAT) of Ralston Community Sports Centre to Kelburne Hockey Club. The letters, which were from Ralston residents and Ralston Community Sports Centre users, were submitted to Renfrewshire Council. We know that hundreds more representations have been submitted by email. The presentation of the objections was reported by the Glasgow Evening Times.

As a community we have made the strength of our opposition abundantly clear. We want our community sports centre to remain a community asset and have also consulted on what we would like to see in the centre. We have asked to work in partnership with OneRen to return the centre’s usage to the more than 85,000 visits per year that it was pre- covid.

A decision on the CAT application will be made by Renfrewshire Council’s Infrastructure, Land and Environment Policy Board. We have been advised that this will happen at either the August 2022 or the November 2022 meeting of the board.

The community council would like to thank the many residents who attended the public meetings to give their views on the application for the transfer.

There are many other people to thank for their ongoing support, including: Russell Findlay, MSP; Neil Bibby, MSP; Neill Graham, local councillor; Graeme Clark, local councillor; St Mark’s Church for allowing us to use it for one of the public meetings; and John and the team at Ralston Community Centre for preparing the centre for the first public meeting (and helping with leafleting). Dionne and her team at the Corner Shop did a superb job in gathering representation letters, leaflets with class choices and the signing of the petition. The biggest support in three rounds of leafleting came from Ralston Skills; a big thank-you for that and for their help with the letter collection. Penultimate thanks go to Idgraphiques and Ukprint1 for their design and printing of our leaflets.

However, the biggest thanks has to be the community who have made clear their wishes and helped with leaflet drops. Some even chapped on doors to help in the representation gathering. We couldn’t have done any more.