PEDAL -> Portobello Transition Town

…Community, Ownership and Land Reform

PEDAL aims to bring a range of valu­able phys­ical assets — such as land, build­ings, or renew­able energy infra­struc­ture — into com­munity own­er­ship. This will sup­port the pro­cess of re-localisation and the cre­ation of a more resi­li­ent Portobello. By own­ing and con­trolling such assets our com­munity can:

• Be sure those assets will be used in ways the com­munity needs and wishes them to, both now and in the future;
• Make a wider range of ser­vices and oppor­tun­it­ies (e.g. bet­ter meet­ing spaces, low cost work space/studios, more recre­ational oppor­tun­it­ies, more jobs) avail­able in Portobello;
• Generate income by trad­ing, for example through let­ting office space, selling locally-produced food, or selling elec­tri­city to the National Grid. This money could then be rein­ves­ted in other local projects.
• Enable us to improve the local area, for example the appear­ance of key local build­ings or areas of land, and main­tain it better;
• Have a renewed sense of pride in being part of a com­munity that owns its own assets.

In 2008 we began devel­op­ing plans for a multi-purpose com­munity facil­ity that would also act as a demon­stra­tion of cutting-edge envir­on­mental tech­no­logy. We named this concept the ‘Transition Hub’. Unfortunately, des­pite our best efforts, we didn’t secure fund­ing to develop the Transition Hub further.

However, PEDAL remains com­mit­ted to help­ing secure mod­ern, avail­able, flex­ible space for local groups that is built to high envir­on­mental stand­ards, and we want to work with oth­ers to make this hap­pen. In fact, we’ve recently been approached by Portobello Community Centre Management Committee to feed into their plans for re-developing the centre.

Town Hall?!

We’d also like to kick off the pro­cess of examin­ing, as a com­munity, what the Town Hall should be for and whether it is really being used to the max­imum bene­fit of the local com­munity. Can we – should we – bring the Town Hall back under com­munity con­trol? This is some­thing that other local groups would need to sup­port and be involved in, but we are happy to start the discussion!

We think that the Town Hall is under-used, is not a very flex­ible or avail­able space, and is a bit expens­ive to hire.  We think it could be bet­ter used to enable a whole range of ven­tures to flour­ish right at the centre of the com­munity — for example a cinema club, a monthly farm­ers mar­ket, and more gigs!

Land Reform:

One way of mak­ing all this hap­pen is to press for a change in legis­la­tion and in the approach taken by local gov­ern­ment and other pub­lic bod­ies to man­aging local assets. For example, we would like to see:

• The coun­cil and other pub­lic bod­ies begin to trans­fer assets to com­munity organ­isa­tions at less than  mar­ket value, where this would bring sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fit for the community;
• The exten­sion of the community-right-to-buy legis­la­tion to cover urban com­munit­ies as well as rural ones. This would enable us to register an interest in, and have right of first refusal over, prop­erty that comes up for sale and could be used for the bene­fit of the community.

Although our imme­di­ate focus is on help­ing to regen­er­ate and strengthen Portobello’s local eco­nomy, part of our wider interest is in push­ing for changes that will enable all com­munit­ies to receive the sup­port they need to relocalise.