OVER the last year Liz MacGillivary has transformed an unkempt patch of land beside the South Beach Medical Centre in Ardrossan into a well-trodden gravel path, with £250 of funding from the Our Place Community Chest.

Liz has also been able to buy plants, fertiliser, weed killer and other gardening materials to grow plants around the path.

The gravel pathway gets a lot of foot traffic and Liz estimates that around 400 people walk across it every day.

It is used by travellers coming and going to the ferry terminal, dog walkers, diners going to the nearby restaurant and local residents who use it as a shortcut.

While Liz has been working on the land many members of the local community have stopped to chat to her about what she is doing and some have volunteered to help with the gardening.

Other passers-by have donated plants to Liz and she has even arrived to find plants lying beside the path for her to use from an anonymous supporter.

Previously the land had been covered in weeds and litter, and people frequently cut across the grass and had turned it into a slightly muddy patch.

Liz, who tends to the grounds of the medical centre across the street, had noticed that the land was in a poor state and felt it wasn’t a welcoming sight for Arran commuters travelling in from the nearby ferry terminal.

She was able to obtain £250 of National Lottery funding from the Our Place Community chest to buy gravel to make a path in the land and purchase the materials she needed to grow plants in the grass around it.

Liz continues to tend to the land and is grateful for the financial support as she says the path wouldn’t have been possible without it. In the future Liz would like to place a small environmentally- friendly statue beside the path if possible and encourages members of the local community to get in touch with ideas or materials they may have.