Coronavirus (COVID-19) community resilience in Scotland's islands: research

Urras Oighreachd Ghabhsainn (Galson Estate Trust)

Introduction

Galson is on the north-west side of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, and is made up of 22 crofting communities. It goes right to the north-western tip of the island, to the Port of Nis, which is a destination for tourists wishing to reach the tip of the Outer Hebrides. It is an area rich in natural and cultural heritage. The 22 villages are spread up the coast, covering a distance of around 15 miles from south to north of the Estate area. Stornoway, the capital and main service centre of Lewis, is 12 miles away at the closest point, and around 30 at the furthest point. About 2,000 people live in the Galson area, which covers around 56,000 hectares.

Galson has an ageing population, and it is very mixed in terms of its socio-economic profile with extremes of wealth and poverty. Fuel poverty is a particular issue, but there is wider deprivation and many residents would be classed as vulnerable for one reason or another. In the Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) COVID19 vulnerability index,^[28] Na h-Eileanan an Iar is ranked 7^th out of Scotland's 32 local authorities in terms of combined community vulnerability score and 16% of the population of Na h-Eileanan an Iar live in datazones within the 20% most vulnerable in Scotland, slightly higher than the proportion regionally (14%).

Who was involved

Urras Oighreachd Ghabhsainn, or UOG, is the Trust for the community owned estate of Galson. UOG run the Galson Estate, which includes everything from working on new development projects, running the amenity site, crofting administration, and general estate business (deer and land management, responding to requests to put masts up on the estate, sporting activity, etc.). The main aim of the Trust, however, is to support the community that lives there.

Why the project was needed

Given the aim of the Trust, to represent and support the communities of Galson Estate, the Trust felt it had a responsibility to do what it could to look after the residents of the area at the start of the pandemic. They were aware of a number of potential issues that residents might encounter, and which they were in a position to help with.

"When Covid hit we realised that, just as we were going into lockdown, that we represent the people here and that we had the opportunity to do our best to look out for the people that live here."

Due to having an independent source of income, from wind turbines, the Trust staff were able to continue working, but some of their usual work was not possible. This gave them the ability to switch to doing other things as part of the pandemic response.

"We were able to maintain our staff. Nobody went on furlough so we all just worked through it. We had…all of our staff working. And we could afford to do that because the Trust has an income from the turbines. We were able to carry on, all working from home…with different roles and different tasks that we were doing to support the community."

What the project involved

By mid-March, the UOG team had sent out self-isolation forms, so that the type of help that people in the community needed was understood well before lockdown measures were brought in. A volunteer Facebook group was set-up to share help and guidance. Through this group, the Trust identified 45 volunteers to help as needed. UOG developed a plan of what they would do in the local area, some of which were new things (for example, WhatsApp groups, prescription deliveries, house numbering project, and administration of a hardship fund), and some of which were moving existing things into a new format (for example 85 online Gaelic and English BookBug sessions were delivered on YouTube, and online exercise classes were provided). The Trust stepped in to produce the free local community newsletter when the staff from the Spors Nis, who usually produced it, were furloughed. In addition, the Trust also launched 'mini beast' activities for children who can get into the garden or the croft.

"We got our heads together and came up with a plan."

One of the initial things that they did was to establish a WhatsApp group for each of the 22 villages in the area. These were co-ordinated by volunteers in each village. It was decided that WhatsApp was the easiest and most accessible way to set up a communication group, although they acknowledged that it would not suit everyone. For those people that did not have a phone or use WhatsApp, neighbours were nominated to be the conduit of information for these people, and to 'keep an eye on them'. UOG oversaw the establishment of the groups, and they made sure that in one way or another, everyone in the community was covered either directly or through a neighbour.

Overall, UOG recruited about 45 volunteers through a Facebook group, who were willing to help in whatever way they could. Initially this was helping to set up the WhatsApp groups, but subsequently they were deployed in delivering prescriptions from the two local GP surgeries. Most days, there were deliveries to be made, sometimes only a couple, and on other days considerably more.

While undertaking prescription deliveries, they became aware of the difficulty of finding addresses in villages they did not know as well as their own. It is normal in crofting communities for the numbering of crofts to follow a pattern of when the houses were built, rather than to go in numerical order.

"What we discovered when we were delivering prescriptions was that few had numbers on their houses. And the way the crofts work, everybody's houses are all mixed up, and you could have number 2 sitting beside number 100. It's all over the place."

Not only was the numbering confusing, it was also found that many croft houses did not have a number at all. UOG were concerned that the confusion they and the volunteers experienced when making the deliveries could have serious consequences should there be a medical emergency, with paramedics potentially being unable to find the right property.

"We had a real struggle and sometimes you would have a prescription in your hand and it could take you an hour to find a house. Even though there are maps in the phone books they are not particularly accurate, it's very, very difficult. So we realised that was a real potential problem. If the pandemic had gone crazy here and somebody was really sick, the paramedics would have not been able to find the houses."

The house numbering scheme covered the cost of a house number on slate. For those that were unable to install their own number, the funding could also cover the costs of a local carpenter to do this for them. There are around 800 houses in the Galson area, and of these, 600 were provided with a house number through the scheme. Funding of £9,000 from the Scottish Government's Supporting Communities Fund, was sought to run the project, to cover the costs of manufacture and installation.

The start of the first lockdown coincided with the start of the lambing season, an important time for the crofting communities. Crofters were normally reliant on being able to access crofting supplies from the main crofting supplier in Stornoway, which would normally do deliveries into the community. The supplier decided that it was not safe for their staff to continue travelling to the communities to make deliveries, and so UOG decided to co-ordinate this on behalf of the crofters in the Galson area. A local car hire company offered them the use of a van for free, and three times a week UOG would arrange for a volunteer to drive to Stornoway and collect orders. They would then station themselves in a number of car parks in the Galson area, and crofters would come and collect their orders. By opening the van at the suppliers and allowing the supplies to be loaded on by them, and then opening the van doors in the various car parks, they were able to safely make deliveries of supplies. They continued to do this throughout the lambing season and for the first lockdown.

"It stopped people travelling to and from town and going into shops and we felt that we could do it safely with the volunteers we had. That was quite a big job because a lot of people would be phoning us and giving us orders and we had to manage all of that side of it."

Overall, UOG co-ordinated 3,200 deliveries of prescriptions and crofting supplies, and 450 hours of volunteer support were recorded (though it is assumed that a lot more hours were actually given, just not recorded).

As already noted above, there are pockets of deprivation in the Galson area, and COVID-19 will likely have exacerbated that. The charitable status of UOG mean that they were unable to help anyone financially, but instead they worked with a local church to establish a hardship fund. The Emergency Fund, called Beagan Taic, was aimed at supporting Estate residents who found themselves in severe financial hardship. The partnership with the Cross Free Church brought together the administrative capacity of the Trust with the financial resources of the Church. The administration of the fund was done by one member of the Trust, in order to maintain maximum confidentiality. This member of staff has now moved away from the area and left the employment of the Trust and so it was not possible to ascertain the number of awards made through the fund. The fund has now come to an end.

"It was kept very, very confidential. Everybody knows everybody in the community and everyone knows our staff. So it was kept to one or two people administering it."

The WhatsApp groups were sources of ideas/requests for support from the community, as were the conversations with the community when out delivering prescriptions or taking orders for crofting supplies. UOG was not able to respond to all suggestions for activities they could get involved in, but did what they could to respond positively. They actively went out to community groups and local businesses, to see what help they could offer, and to make sure that they were all aware of official sources of support and grants that were available. They recognised that there was a rapidly changing landscape in terms of business and community support grants and did what they could to help people locally make sure they were accessing what they needed. UOG secured funding of £3,000 from Scottish Government's Communities Recovery Fund (administered by SCVO) for each of eight local community and voluntary organisations, to help them deal with COVID-19 related impacts.

"There were so many grants out there and there potentially still is and trying to keep track of which ones we got for which projects and what the names of them is quite challenging. At the time we were just so bang, bang, bang get everything done and so full on with it all."

What next?

Most of the initiatives UOG put in place came to a natural end point. Volunteers went back to work, people were able to get their own prescriptions again once they were able to go out and about, and the van on loan from the car hire company was returned as it was needed for commercial hire. Although the activities stopped, UOG and the community always knew that they could go back to doing them again if needed. The exception to this is the WhatsApp groups which continue to this day, and these will continue as long as the communities see merit in them being there. Although the immediate need for communication has passed, it is acknowledged that they may be needed again. It is also acknowledged that they could not have been set up at any other time because UOG would have been seen as 'controlling'. Not all of the WhatsApp groups are active, whilst others continue to be very active and have been re-purposed for whatever need the individual villages see. Membership of some of the village groups has been expanded to include non-residents with family connections in the Galson area, for example, because they see the value of being kept up to date with the news from the area.

"Others have been extremely active and still are to this day. They have been used for all sorts of things…used for random stuff like that. In the beginning it was I'm going to Tesco for my shopping, can I get anybody anything, or I'm going to get a prescription from town, or whatever, a lot of Covid related support that people were offering. Recently it's just random stuff, sometimes it's just chatting about stuff. Like do you remember such and such that used to live there and died 50 years ago, her daughter is doing this, just general chat."

There were considerable differences between the villages as to how active the groups were, and they are not really sure why this is the case. One suggestion was the varying age profiles of the villages, with older residents being less likely to use WhatsApp. Another suggestion was that in some cases, the community cohesion and communication was already very strong using other means, and so there was no real need for an additional communication route. Whatever the reasons, they were used to varying degrees, initially for COVID-19 related support (checking up on each other, people offering to collect shopping for neighbours etc.), and now for sharing local news and searching for missing animals.

"I think it is a really good thing to have one [WhatsApp group] going. We could never had done it in any other time but it was really appreciated."

Reflections

Making sure that they were in contact with other groups in the area was important for UOG, so that effort was not being duplicated, and equally things were not falling between the gaps in what was available. There were others doing other things in the local community such as meal delivery, for instance, and so there was no need for UOG to get involved in this area. That said, while UOG had no formal role in supporting other organisations locally, they helped them where they could, and ensured they had an understanding of what they were doing. Through the work that UOG did during the pandemic, they feel that the relationship they have with the local community has improved, and that the community showed a great deal of trust for the Trust.

"Everybody was good at doing what they could…We just communicated with the other organisations, we made sure we weren't stepping on each other's toes. But we were there for support should it be needed. We were part of a larger community."

The Trust felt that it was very important and appropriate that they took on a local role in offering and providing support. Support was available at many different levels, from UK-wide down to local communities, and they had a place in that hierarchy. National and local government had other issues to deal with, and they felt it was appropriate that more local action was led locally on the ground by groups such as UOG who were able to fill the gaps at a very local level.

"Our relationship with the community has changed for the better. It was a good way of getting to know the community better. We had a lot more face-to-face contact with people that we would maybe not have much contact with. Whether it was the older people that don't come out. We were on the doorstep chatting with them, delivering to them."

Looking back, they feel that everything that they did was successful and well received by the local community, and they would do the same again if it were needed. If this were the case, they would recruit additional volunteers, because it was a lot more work to co-ordinate the various activities than they had appreciated at the start. And once a project is up and running, and seen to be successful, it is harder to get additional volunteers. The start of something is the optimum time for recruiting volunteers, and they would have got more had they appreciated what was ahead of them, even if that meant some volunteers had very little to do.

At the start of the pandemic, the priority was to do what they could, as quickly as they could. The barriers that might have been perceived in 'normal' times were not considered at the time, and this was quite freeing in a way. Had they had more time to sit and plan and think about what to do, without the urgency of needing to do it, they might not have felt able to establish these initiatives. So for instance, delivery volunteers did not always have a hi-vis jacket, or car insurance of volunteers was not necessarily checked to make sure it covered their volunteering activity.

"We thought these are not normal times, if anything happened we could justify it. There were things maybe later on that we thought of that we thought we should have thought of in the beginning. But in the beginning it was just we have to do something to help here."

Having control at a local level was an important factor for the success of the various initiatives: they were able to get on and do what they felt was needed. Equally, getting feedback from the community through the WhatsApp groups and other direct communication, was also important so they could make sure they were on the right track.

"We were able to get our heads down and get on with it. Because we were on the ground and out speaking to people, we could get feedback on it. We could ensure that it was working. It was a chance to speak to people and get feedback straightaway from them that what we were doing was the right thing. And I think they knew that if there was anything else they thought we should be doing they could have contacted us or one of the board members."

As an organisation, the experience of the pandemic has shown them what they are capable of, and also shown how the community trusts them to act on their behalf. It has highlighted the need for a process of emergency planning at the local level, and this is something that UOG is looking to put in place once things are more settled post-pandemic. For real value, this would be a joint process with relevant local groups, rather than being done in isolation. Some support to do this, and some involvement of community-based organisations into the Community Planning Western Isles Emergency Planning Co-ordinating Group (WIEPCG), would be very valuable moving forward.

"I just think that if we are in a crisis the community pulls together really well and are willing to trust the trust, to trust us, to manage what we can and to look to us to support them. That's not always evidenced, you don't always know what the community are thinking. It was good to know that in a time of crisis they would turn to us. And good for us to know as a staff team that we can do it. We were a pretty resilient staff team."

What community resilience means to UOG

For UOG community resilience is about individuals and groups within the community coming together at times of emergency to work together, and that there are good communication channels to facilitate this. Working together can simply be making sure that they are not duplicating effort, or that they are doing so consciously because there is justification to do so. In other cases, it might be more involved than that with groups actively delivering things jointly. There will always be some personalities that can get in the way of things within any community, but they consider themselves lucky that they are in a position where the majority are willing to come together and work round that.

"The ability to come together and work together and be able to problem solve together. To ensure that we can go forward doing the best that we can to maintain what we have got."

The Outer Hebrides is a popular tourism destination, and this was no less the case in between lockdowns. Indeed, domestic holidays became more popular as a result of the pandemic, and the Western Isles saw its fair share of UK holiday makers, possibly being busier than ever. For UOG, this highlighted the need for investment in the local tourism infrastructure, which, in their opinion, was unable to cope with the demands placed on it at the time. Many of the communities in the Galson area would be considered as vulnerable (as evident in the HIE COVID-19 vulnerability index) and UOG felt that the lack of adequate tourism infrastructure increased the risk for local people. UOG think that funding to support appropriate tourism development is needed, through investment in waste and waste water disposal facilities, public toilets, bins, and grants for small scale private campsites. UOG would like to see "less marketing and more education" on appropriate ways to behave in rural communities that do not put local people at the same level of risk as was seen at times during the pandemic.

"Moving forward the one way we could be supported is the tourism infrastructure. The one place where we have been impacted is in the local tourism, not always negatively, where people are staying at home and coming to vulnerable areas where the infrastructure just isn't in place for them. Going forward and still to do with Covid, and the impact of Covid is tourism infrastructure – more bins, more toilets, grants for people to set up private campsite areas on their land, less marketing and more education."

Piece of advice to others

Community-based groups working together, and in some cases where appropriate with the statutory agencies, is crucial for communities if they are to be resilient to emergency situations such as was experienced with the pandemic. Having good working relations in 'normal' times enables groups to really come together when needed. An essential part of this is good communication.