'Community wealth building is something I am passionate about'

Last week, statistics revealed that a typical household in the wealthiest 10% of households has £1.3 million in total wealth, whereas a typical household in the least wealthy 10% of households had £7600.

The UK is wealthy, but the gap between our richest and poorest 10% is now, the US excepted, the highest in the developed world.

While government, council and big funders can put money into communities, the most sustainable approach is to facilitate that wealth being created within communities, and crucially, ensuring that wealth is reinvested back into those communities.

There are many examples of this across the city, from the council procurement benefitting local businesses to our innovative Community Renewable Energy Framework (CREF), which aims to support increased generation of renewable energy from community-owned assets.

But there is much more to do, and as the lead for CWB within Glasgow SNP, I am determined that we do that work.

I recently visited the Whiteinch Centre for their relaunch along with Bill Kidd MSP and our SNP candidate for 2026, Colm Merrick.

One of the things that struck me most about the centre is where it is now compared to where it was a couple of years ago.

Due to the ongoing challenges of securing sustainable funding, there was a very real risk that the centre could have closed.

That has been completely turned on its head thanks to Whiteinch and Scotstoun Housing Association, who own the centre, and the dynamic leadership which has put the centre on a sure footing, in no small part due to profits generated from the housing association.

Wealth generated in the community being reinvested in the community — that's community wealth building in action.

One of the biggest contributors to CWB is our social enterprises.

Glasgow is the undisputed leader of SEs across the country.

This is in no small part thanks to Glasgow Social Enterprise Network, which enables opportunities for 270 social enterprises across the city.

It therefore comes as no surprise that so many Glasgow-based SEs are nominated at this year's Social Enterprise Scotland awards.

Nominees include local organisation Glasgow Wood, which reuses and rehouses timber, preventing huge quantities of this valuable resource from being sent to landfill, while providing valuable training and volunteer opportunities to locals as a solution for unemployment and social exclusion.

While much of our CWB work happens at council level, the City Region team are working hard to deliver CWB across the Glasgow City Region.

Just this week, a paper came to committee detailing the next steps that the City Region will be taking on the finance principle of CWB.

CWB has five principles: finance, community ownership, fair employment, progressive procurement and a socially productive use of land and buildings.

Under the SNP, we are meeting all of these — from investing in communities through various council funds; building the capacity of local groups to manage their own venues through the People Make Glasgow Communities programme; being a living wage employer and promoting fair work through the Glasgow Guarantee; vacant and derelict land down 288 hectares since 2017, much of it being reclaimed for social homes; and the potential for CREF to cut carbon emissions and bills.

There are already so many examples of CWB across Glasgow and the wider City Region — enough to fill several columns.

What we mustn't do, though, is get complacent; there is still more we can do across each of the five principles.

What must be absolutely central in our focus as we go forward is that every community feels the benefit of community wealth building.