"What would make Kilwinning town centre get respect?"



15 pupils from Kilwinning Academy looked at how they could enhance and improve the streetscape within Kilwinning town centre. The group considered lots of possibilities and conducted a survey of local people who worked in the area. They also visited Buchanan Street, Glasgow and Linthouse in Govan to look at successful streetscape regenerated areas and they were asked to attend the Irvine Bay Annual Public meeting along with MSP Nicola Sturgeon.



The group created a short film to summarise their own perceptions of the town centre, choosing to highlight the areas that they feel the town centre can build upon, such as the Abbey and the train links to Glasgow and surrounding areas. Focusing on the positives the group came up with initiatives to get the community involved such as creating banners to decorate the town during the regeneration. They felt the inclusion of the community was key to the success of the town’s regeneration. The group also contacted several press companies to request coverage and the project was featured in local papers as well as on the new S1Kilwinning website.



“Through the work of Space unlimited, we have been able to benefit from the creativity, enthusiasm and openness of the young people. A number of their ideas will now be explored in detail as we take the regeneration programmes forward. A relationship has now been established that we will continue to build upon.“ James Ledgerwood, Project Manager, Irvine Bay URC