Remembering Together - Covid Memorial
North Lanarkshire Council · 8 February 2023
Back to Environment and Climate Change Committee — 8 February 2023 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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North Lanarkshire Council Report Environment and Climate Change Committee Does this report require to be approved? ☒ Yes ☐ No Ref AM/VA/CM Date 08/02/23 Remembering Together – Covid Memorial From Andrew McPherson, Chief Officer (Community Operations) E-mail Mcphersona@northlan.gov.uk Telephone 07939 280467 Executive Summary This report provides an update on progress so far with the community co-creation process to create a Covid Memorial for North Lanarkshire through the Scotland wide Remembering Together program. The report outlines the next steps which will take the project through from consultation in 2022 to design and installation in 2023. Recommendations It is recommended that the Environment and Climate Change committee: 1) Recognise the progress on developing a Covid memorial co-created with communities. 2) Endorses the proposals to take the program through to completion. The Plan for North Lanarkshire Priority Enhance participation, capacity, and empowerment across our communities Ambition statement (15) Encourage the health and wellbeing of people through a range of social, cultural, and leisure activities
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1. Background 1.1 In 2021 a national memorial project was begun in Glasgow, in Pollok Park, initiated by The Herald and created by Alec Finlay. This project highlighted that there was a desire for other kinds of memorial that communities can co-create and that many people need this space and project to process their experience. The Scottish Government announced it would fund the Remembering Together programme of co-created community memorial projects in every local authority in the country with greenspace scotland coordinating the programme nationally. 1.2 All 32 local authority areas in Scotland are commissioning artists or creative practitioners to co-create with their communities, exploring who, what and how we want to remember and honour all those affected by Covid. Covid touched, and continues to affect, everyone in Scotland, and in the world. Remembering Together gives our community some space to pause, to reflect and to consider all that has happened and is still happening. The Remembering Together programme aims to provide fitting and lasting local tributes to those who lost their lives to COVID-19 and other illnesses, and those who have experienced change, loss and isolation in other ways during the pandemic. The programme will provide spaces that people can visit and cherish; where people will be able to gather in person to mark the pandemic and to remember those we have lost and pay tribute to the many ways we offered support and solidarity to one another during an extraordinary period. 1.3 Remembering Together is being delivered differently in each of the Scottish local authority areas and the local authority is not always the lead agency, however North Lanarkshire Council is the partner delivering Remembering Together for our communities. This is because the memorial will form the first major artistic piece of the Art Park in Strathclyde Country Park (SCP) in line with Country Parks for the future and the masterplan for SCP approved by the Policy and Strategy committee in March 2020. Strathclyde Country Park is a regional level attraction with excellent visitor facilities including a changing places toilet, electric vehicle charging and free parking which contributes to its suitability as the host site for the memorial. The peaceful park atmosphere is an appropriate location for allowing visitors to reflect as they visit the memorial. 1.4 Proposals to engage artists to co-create ideas with communities focusing on a single memorial at SCP were outlined and agreed at the Environment and Transportation committee in February 2022. 2. Report 2.1 In order to guide the Remembering Together process the council formed a multi departmental panel with representation from Active and Creative Communities, the Communities Team and Community Operations. A call out for artists was advertised early in 2022 and several artists were shortlisted for interview in May 2022. A team of two were appointed, John Martin Fulton and Russell McGovern. These artists have a strong track record of working with community groups, including those who are harder to reach. 2.2 The artists received an initial list of eight community groups from across North Lanarkshire from the Communities Team, selected because in various different ways these groups’ activities had been significantly impacted by the pandemic. The artists also spent some time engaging with new groups to ensure a good representative spread both geographically and in terms of differing backgrounds and barriers. Thirty
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groups in total were invited to participate and fifteen accepted with approximately 280 individuals engaging with the process. 2.3 Workshops were arranged with the different groups and while these explored options for a permanent artistic output to commemorate the pandemic they also acted as a form of art therapy, enabling participants to explore their feelings and learn new creative skills which can positively impact on mental health and resilience. The workshops were also a great space for people to reconnect socially. The outputs of the workshops will be used to create a book as a permanent output and will also be available digitally online for everyone to explore and learn from. 2.4 Workshops were completed early December 2022 and the artists will now work with the council’s Art Park panel to consider how the community co-creation outputs can be converted to a series of feasible options for different permanent pieces in the park. The intention is that these options will then be displayed for all our communities to see and respond to in the Spring. 2.5 Based on the results of the second phase of community input a design will be chosen around the start of the 2023/24 financial year and is likely to go into production around June 2023. The intention is the Remembering Together Memorial will be in place in the park by the end of 2023. As well as this physical output the co-creation process and photos and video of the memorial from inception to creation will be available digitally through the council website to enable everyone to share the experience. 2.6 The cost of running the community co-creation workshops, (phase 1) of Remembering Together, was £15k and funded by Greenspace Scotland. The next steps of Remembering Together are being resourced through a £100k grant to the council from the Scottish Government through Greenspace Scotland. 2.7 Although the memorial is to be located within Strathclyde Country Park and access will be available to all, should any local community group consider that a a more localised act of remembrance is required, then the Council’s Community Partnership team will support that organisation to determine if external grant funding could be accessed to assist in delivery of this. 3. Measures of success 3.1 The installation of an artistic piece in Strathclyde Country Park co-created by representatives from communities from across North Lanarkshire which commemorates the experience our people had during the Covid 19 pandemic. 4. Supporting documentation N/A Andrew McPherson Chief Officer (Community Operations)
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5. Impacts ( http://connect/report-template-guidance ) 5.1 Public Sector Equality Duty and Fairer Scotland Duty Does the report contain information that has an impact as a result of the Public Sector Equality Duty and/or Fairer Scotland Duty? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? If Yes, has an assessment been carried out and published on the council’s website? https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/equalities/equality-and-fairer- scotland-duty-impact-assessments Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.2 Financial impact Does the report contain any financial impacts? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant financial impacts have been discussed and agreed with Financial Solutions? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.3 HR policy impact Does the report contain any HR policy or procedure impacts? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant HR impacts have been discussed and agreed with People and Organisational Development? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.4 Legal impact Does the report contain any legal impacts (such as general legal matters, statutory considerations (including employment law considerations), or new legislation)? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant legal impacts have been discussed and agreed with Legal and Democratic Solutions? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.5 Data protection impact Does the report / project / practice contain or involve the processing of personal data? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, is the processing of this personal data likely to result in a high risk to the data subject? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, has a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out and e- mailed to dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.6 Technology / Digital impact Does the report contain information that has an impact on either technology, digital transformation, service redesign / business change processes, data management, or connectivity / broadband / Wi-Fi? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact?
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Where the impact identifies a requirement for technology, has an assessment been carried out (or scheduled) by the Enterprise Architecture Governance Group (EAGG)? Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.7 Environmental / Carbon impact Does the report / project / practice contain information that has an impact on any environmental or carbon matters? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.8 Communications impact Does the report contain any information that has an impact on the council’s communications activities? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? The completed memorial will be promoted to communities through our communications activities 5.9 Risk impact Is there a risk impact? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the key risks and potential impacts, highlighting where the risk(s) are assessed and recorded (e.g. Corporate or Service or Project Risk Registers), and how they are managed? 5.10 Armed Forces Covenant Duty Does the report require to take due regard of the Armed Forces Covenant Duty (i.e. does it relate to healthcare, housing, or education services for in-Service or ex- Service personnel, or their families, or widow(er)s)? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the provision which has been made to ensure there has been appropriate consideration of the particular needs of the Armed Forces community to make sure that they do not face disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public services.