ALISON RENNIE

The long-held dream of transforming a former police station into a community health and well-being hub is well on its way to becoming reality.

Almost a year on from the building work starting, the vision of Johnstone-based charity Active Communities is taking shape.

The charity, which runs several fitness and wellbeing classes for people of all ages, had the idea of taking over the former Johnstone Police Station across the road from its current offices on Quarry Street, back in 2018.

Then followed mountains of paperwork to secure funding and an asset transfer of the building.

Contractors Lochlie moved on site in October last year and now they’re looking ahead to welcoming people into the site early next year.

It aims to be a vibrant, modern, flexible space and a focal point for the community.

And key to that is its new name which has been unveiled as Station 7.

Chief executive Susan McDonald explained: “Everyone calls it the old police station, even we all call it the police station.

“We worked with our community groups on the name, it was a couple of volunteers who suggested it.

“The building is at number seven Quarry Street so we came up with Station 7.

“We’re keen to keep the name but maybe not the negative connotations with it.”

The building will boast a living room area, community kitchen, events space, a community pantry, volunteer hub and a meeting space.

There will be office space and a training suite as well as space outside for business hubs, a large flexible outdoor space called The Shed to house the Mens’ Shed and Bike Buddies groups, and a community garden.

The space will be fully accessible with a lift between the two levels and a new ramped entrance created at the side of the building.

The former entrance into the station has been turned into a large feature window onto what will be the coffee bar area.

As well as the name being a nod to the building’s past, project manager Amanda Moulson said they’ve also tried to incorporate the history of the building into the new design.

She said: “We’ve kept the two cells. “One will be a plant room but the other will be a small meeting area, called The Old Cell. The wallpaper we’ve picked for in there has keys on it and we’ve kept the peep holes as well which we’ll put on the wall.”

With building work now happening on every aspect of the site, things are clearly gearing up to welcome in groups early next spring.

A striking change is the open, welcoming and bright feel to the building compared to the understandably intimidating and dark interior of its previous life as a police station.

There are windows everywhere with natural light streaming in and even offering views of Ben Lomond on a clear day.

Susan said: “The excitement is really beginning to build now we’re seeing it come to life.

“We’re starting to buy paint and furniture now. All the hard work is starting to pay off.

“Every time we go into the building we see something new or something’s changed. This project started in 2018 so it’s been a long time coming.

“We were lucky to have all our funding in place before the pandemic struck.

“It’s been perfect timing coming out of covid, there’s such a need for it now to get people back together and connected again. It’s really exciting.”