Improving places
The quality of our places and spaces is declining
Scotland's places and their heritage are restored
Help us improve our local communities
Restoring Scotland’s places and their heritage
We recognise the value of our places and their heritage and inspire action to protect them.
Action is being taken in neighbourhoods across Scotland by volunteers to improve the places they care about. We aim to inspire people, through our training, community support networks and celebrate success through our awards and accreditations.
Our combined impact
We inspire communities, schools, organisations, businesses and individuals to improve places through our training and wide range of practical activities and programmes.
Last year’s impact included:
- 176,364 hours committed by volunteers to improve their neighbourhoods.
- 53 Scotland’s Beach Awards and 85 Green Flag Award for parks.
- More than 24,000 participating in a litter pick.
Our work to improve places and spaces
We’re working every day to inspire people to protect and enhance the places where they live, work and visit. We engage with communities helping them to understand and value their heritage and take action to protect it.
Our longstanding community programmes It’s Your Neighbourhood and Beautiful Scotland support and celebrate efforts of volunteers, community groups and local authorities as they take action to make improve the places that they love.
Canal College is our programme of heritage skills focused employability project helping people boost their life and work chances whilst protecting the nation’s canal heritage. We currently deliver this programme in partnership with Falkirk Canal Connections.
Placemaking Through Heritage is a three-year project aiming to inspire a creative and vibrant Scotland – motivating local residents to become more involved in looking after, protecting and managing their local place for generations to come.
Clean Up Scotland is our campaign to tackle litter. Whether you are an individual, member of a community, school or a business, we can all work together to improve our environment.
We celebrate action taken by local authorities, communities and land managers through our Green Flag Awards and Scotland's Beach Awards, both of which have criteria linking the communities to the heritage of places.
In 2023 we launched Our Heritage, Our Future aimed at inspiring heritage and climate action in communities.
Supporting you to take action
Our natural and built heritage is under threat. We support you to recognise the value of your places and heritage and take action to protect it.
Find out more about our work with your community to protect and improve places. You can help by joining a Beautiful Scotland or It's Your Neighbourhood group, helping your local green and blue space to get an award or join our campaign to Clean Up Scotland.
Read our recent reports
You can access our most recent reports covering our work to improve places below, but we also publish a range of reports summarising our campaigns, activities and findings over the years. These can be found on our reports and publications pages. Do get in touch if you would like to find out more.
