A new youth and community centre costing just short of a million pounds is coming to Castlemilk after a campaign led by Thenue Housing.

The news is a huge boost for the Netherholm community in Castlemilk which has tirelessly campaigned for the centre and is now celebrating a huge victory.

Big Lottery Scotland is to provide £995,000 from its Growing Community Assets Fund – one of the biggest community cash windfalls Castlemilk has ever seen.

The campaign was driven by Thenue Housing – which has homes in the area – in partnership with local residents’ group the Netherholm Area Association.

The area association is linked to Thenue – recently named as Scotland’s housing association of the year - and receives funding and help from the housing provider so that it can represent the views of local people.

Both Netherholm Area Association and Thenue hailed the development as a “game changer” for Castlemilk and would help families across the community.

Berni Johnston, chair of the Area Association, said: “This is the best news in years. A new youth and community centre is what we have been campaigning to achieve for some time. We can hardly believe that it will soon be here.

“We are immensely grateful to Big Lottery Scotland for giving Castlemilk something to celebrate. This will make a big difference to many people’s lives.”

Work on building the new centre will begin this autumn and is expected to take a year to build.

The new centre will act as a social and economic hub for Netherholm providing many services and with the key priority of meeting the needs and aspirations of children and young people.

It will be a flexible, multi-purpose building with a large hall, meetings rooms and an I.T. suite.

Charlie Turner, chief executive of Thenue Housing, said: “This is magnificent news for Netherholm and the wider Castlemilk community. The entire community which got behind bringing a new centre to the area deserves a pat on the back for their vision and hard work and the fact that they never gave up.

“Crucially, this will be generously funded from Big Lottery Scotland – and not from rents we collect from our tenants. It’s another example of the value for money approach we adopt at Thenue.”

Lawrence McCabe, community regeneration manager at Thenue, said: “We have always believed that regenerating communities doesn’t stop with building homes. We need to do much more and obtaining such a large amount of money from Big Lottery Scotland to help the Netherholm community is a good example of that.

“People of all ages – but particularly the young – will benefit greatly from this new centre. We are delighted to be making a difference.”