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Thor House, Ormlie

In 1997 the residents of Ormlie reformed the Ormlie Community Association (OCA) as a registered charity to address the issues of speeding cars and the dangerous condition of the existing play areas within their housing estate..

The Problem

The Ormlie estate faced many social issues – there were very high levels of unemployment, a high percentage of single parents, a large number of families with young children but with a serious lack of facilities for children and young people and few families owning cars, Ormlie suffered many of the same problems that other run down housing estates face.

In 1997 a child was knocked down crossing the road to get to one of the dilapidated play spaces. This prompted residents to undertake a door to door consultation to ascertain people’s concerns and, whilst there were many issues raised, the neglected and dangerous state of the existing play equipment was considered a priority. In 1999 they set up a community office, appointed a co-coordinator and administrator and fund-raising began in earnest for the new play area. The run-down estate was designated as a Social Inclusion Area and as a pilot area for the Community Partners Programme set up by Save the Children (one of only 4 areas in Scotland) to work with 9-15 year olds. In 2000, Ormlie was also selected as a pilot ‘Home Zone’ by the Scottish Executive.

The Solution

Central to the design and implementation of the play area was (and still is) the involvement of the children and young people in Ormlie. Discussions commenced with Architects and The Highland Council on plans for the play area and a green space in the centre of the estate was chosen.

Despite their application for funding from the National Lottery being turned down in 2000, OCA continued unabated and in May 2002 finally secured funding for the project (the play area cost a total of £206,000) from a wide range of agencies and organisations both national and local: The Community Fund – Fresh Futures, Comic Relief, The Highland Council, Rural Challenge Fund and Highlands & Islands Enterprise to name but a few!

Jupiter Play worked in conjunction with OCA, the young people in the community and Pentarq Architects to produce the final design. The proposed plans were exhibited in the community office and local shop for feedback. The new play area was a major milestone in the Ormlie Regeneration Project and included Caithness’s first skateboard area, a multi-sports arena, play facilities for all ages (including many dynamic and challenging items) and seating for all members of the community. A competition was also organised for children to design a logo for the park signs and the winning designs were utilised on the contemporary signage situated at the entrance to the park and on the lighting columns installed for the multi-sports area.

Work commenced on site in the autumn of 2002 and its official opening took place in December of that year. Lorna Simpson, manager of OCA, said of the opening “This is a tremendous day for the Ormlie Community who fought long and hard to provide quality play facilities for their children. Through partnership working with a number of agencies and organisations we have shown that small communities can become active players in the decision-making process to the benefit of the whole area. Ormlie has become an important pilot area in the field of regeneration and the construction of the play area is another step forward in the overall plan”.

The Outcome

Since the parks installation, OCA members have become ambassadors for community working at its best – speaking at Home Zone Conferences and Community Partner Programme Events throughout the country! The originality and success of the play area at Thor House, and the associations’ hard work in completely regenerating the whole area, has also been recognised by many organisations – The OCA won the Nancy Ovens Trust Award in 2005 for their Outstanding Contribution to Play and a group of children from Ormlie were asked to make a trip to Orkney to assess the quality of one of this years entries! In January 2006 they were chosen as runners-up in the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) Awards in the British Community Development Section and were ‘Commended’ in the same category of the Dynamic Place Awards held in Edinburgh. In July, OCA won the Community Partners Programme category of the Wavemaker Awards which highlights and celebrates inspirational achievements and initiatives of children and young people who come from diverse and often difficult backgrounds, around the UK.

Key to the success of the play area was the community participation with children and young people involved throughout the consultation and planning process.

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