Rural Rest Lanarkshire's outdoor relaxation and wellbeing community group

12/06/2026

Please like & share thank you 😊 🙏

We are a new proactive, pioneering and innovative organisation ready to properly introduce and continue the importance of outdoor health and wellbeing.

02/06/2026

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all doing well. We'd like to thank every single person for the incredible love, support, excitement, and encouragement you've shown. Our inbox has been flooded with messages, and our email has been just as busy. The response has been truly overwhelming.

This pioneering vision has been brought to life by a handful of ordinary people, supported by councillors who believed in what we are trying to achieve for our community.

We will continue to post updates on the Rural Rest page throughout every stage of the journey, so everyone can follow our progress and stay informed.

Every kind word, like, share, comment, and message is appreciated more than you know. Rural Rest would like to thank you all for being part of this journey.

Now that approval has been granted by North Lanarkshire Council, our focus turns to bringing this vision to life.

We hope you're ready for something truly spectacular!

31/05/2026

Awright folks?
What is your deepest fear?
John again, firstly I’d like to thank everyone for all of their appreciation after the news today that Rural Rest, it’s vision and plan has been approved by North Lanarkshire Council but after thanking all of our supporters and those who send good wishes it’s important to thank and appreciate those less spoken of and often vilified around our towns and villages.
There’s a lot said when it comes to North Lanarkshire council, most of which I must say I’m guilty of but there is folk who know the score when it comes to making sure a real difference starts somewhere.
Within the chambers and corridors at Motherwell civic centre it’s hard to say wether some inside know what happens on the streets and to be honest I still think some don’t but I know there’s some who do.
At the beginning of Rural Rests journey I found myself asking what are the council afraid of? Why are they so feart to help create something that anyone could use to help ease the day to day navigation of life in North Lanarkshire?
This found us being dragged from pillar to post, experiencing mild highs of promises and desperate lows and thoughts of giving up.

That was until we contacted our local councillor Cllr Geraldine Woods - Coatbridge South
Geraldine got it, straight away and she helped organise meaningful meetings with officers at the council who might benefit from hearing the case upfront instead of through emails and applications.
She has been an avid supporter of Rural Rest and has done everything she could to push our case to today’s success over and above everything she does as probably one of the best if not the best councillor Coatbridge has. If you live in the Coatbridge South ward I guarantee you’ll know who she is and she is a credit to the area and the people who elected her. She also pushed the case to the top table where the leader and deputy leader Councillor Jim Logue and Councillor Louise Roarty sit.
They got it too, they, all three of them see why Rural Rest was pushing so hard to create this space they see that…..

It’s in the single mothers juggling a baby and a job
In every single brother struggling that wound up in the dock
It's in the roots and the foundations still clinging to the land
It’s in the hearts of every person who wants to lend a hand
It’s in strife all the people your family and your friends
It's in the roots that we inherit when a generation ends
It's in the ruins of your youth and the faces of your past
Because the Shire might be changing, but the people always last.

Simple fact is they wirnae feart, they noticed that the beige and glass veneer of the civic centre can create something different and it helped make Rural Rest possible a green and leafy space where you can come and put your feet up that’s it simple relax, talk, share if you like and go home knowing you feel better for it.

Geraldine, Jim and Louise and the new community team leader Stephen Llewellyn know this and we thank them for realising it…….

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.”

30/05/2026

27/05/2026

Awright folks?
What is your deepest fear?
John again, firstly I’d like to thank everyone for all of their appreciation after the news today that Rural Rest, it’s vision and plan has been approved by North Lanarkshire Council but after thanking all of our supporters and those who send good wishes it’s important to thank and appreciate those less spoken of and often vilified around our towns and villages.
There’s a lot said when it comes to North Lanarkshire council, most of which I must say I’m guilty of but there is folk who know the score when it comes to making sure a real difference starts somewhere.
Within the chambers and corridors at Motherwell civic centre it’s hard to say wether some inside know what happens on the streets and to be honest I still think some don’t but I know there’s some who do.
At the beginning of Rural Rests journey I found myself asking what are the council afraid of? Why are they so feart to help create something that anyone could use to help ease the day to day navigation of life in North Lanarkshire?
This found us being dragged from pillar to post, experiencing mild highs of promises and desperate lows and thoughts of giving up.

That was until we contacted our local councillor Cllr Geraldine Woods - Coatbridge South
Geraldine got it, straight away and she helped organise meaningful meetings with officers at the council who might benefit from hearing the case upfront instead of through emails and applications.
She has been an avid supporter of Rural Rest and has done everything she could to push our case to today’s success over and above everything she does as probably one of the best if not the best councillor Coatbridge has. If you live in the Coatbridge South ward I guarantee you’ll know who she is and she is a credit to the area and the people who elected her. She also pushed the case to the top table where the leader and deputy leader Councillor Jim Logue and Councillor Louise Roarty sit.
They got it too, they, all three of them see why Rural Rest was pushing so hard to create this space they see that…..

It’s in the single mothers juggling a baby and a job
In every single brother struggling that wound up in the dock
It's in the roots and the foundations still clinging to the land
It’s in the hearts of every person who wants to lend a hand
It’s in strife all the people your family and your friends
It's in the roots that we inherit when a generation ends
It's in the ruins of your youth and the faces of your past
Because the Shire might be changing, but the people always last.

Simple fact is they wirnae feart, they noticed that the beige and glass veneer of the civic centre can create something different and it helped make Rural Rest possible a green and leafy space where you can come and put your feet up that’s it simple relax, talk, share if you like and go home knowing you feel better for it.

Geraldine, Jim and Louise and the new community team leader Stephen Llewellyn know this and we thank them for realising it…….

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.”

27/05/2026

Well well well… sometimes the wee man on the street wins.
Today Rural Rest secured its lease to create Scotland’s first purpose-built mental health facility within nature in Coatbridge. Our people came together and achieved a tremendous victory that will echo through generations to come.
North Lanarkshire Council said yes to supporting our pioneering vision — a hand of help towards creating something truly special for the community. Rural Rest will be a place people can use daily, a place of peace, support and connection within nature.
There’s no time for celebrations yet — our minds are already on the build. But today gives us something priceless: a starting point.

27/05/2026

Awright folks?
John here I’d like to take a minute on the page to give a massive shout out to someone who without their drive, determination, and non acceptance of the word no Rural Rest probably wouldn’t be where we are today.
My wife Charlene came to me after an idea she had while operating Robe and Rest, she had realised that rest, relaxation and specific directed assistance to take stock of day to day life should be publicly and readily accessible knowing her background in being a mental health practitioner I knew she was onto something.
She asked how it could be done and I told her that community empowerment law could allow ways to take control of or purchase a building from the council to operate as a community asset.
Quickly and ferociously she changed the game and suggested that it should be outside surrounded by nature and that she’d stop at nothing to make it happen.
Today it has so I’d like to praise Charlene’s efforts which in their own way have strengthened her resolve even more to ensure Scotlands first walk in outdoor mental health and well-being facility is what it should be.
Charlene recognises that it’s difficult for people from a working class background to succeed in front of the people who pull the levers in govt but she has shown them that as long as some of us can’t be silenced in our endeavours all of us will be heard.
You have a warrior representing you folks and you’ll see the results soon enough.
So thank Charlene you certainly hit ‘em up.