Dovecot doesn’t have a one stop shop for council services, but it does have Lin Doyle.
“I'm like a one stop shop on my mobility scooter,” the 63-year-old jokes as she sits inside an empty St Luke’s Church Community centre on Princes Drive. It is from here she runs a free community debt advice drop in on a Thursday afternoon, where she’ll also signpost benefits, point people in the right direction for housing support and locate food for those in need.
All this comes under a role she has made for herself, and one she undertakes voluntarily - gradually expanding in the 22 years she’s been working within the Dovecot community. Lin’s main focus however is children in the local area, many of whom are still likely to be processing the murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt Korbel - a tragedy that has torn through this tightly packed collection of terraces in the east of the city.
