Portobello Energy Descent and Land Reform Group

Welcome to Portobello, Scotland’s first Transition Town. We believe that the huge wave of communities around the UK — whether they’re Transition Towns, Going Carbon Neutral, Sustainable, Community Buy Outs, kicking out plastic bags or getting more local food bought and sold — are showing that people have had enough of the way we've been doing things, and that there is another way — or lots of them!  The huge challenges of Climate Change and Peak Oil have galvanised us to action in our thousands, and we have huge potential to make a fundamental difference to how we live in a way that government so far has not managed, and individuals on their own often feel is beyond them.

We started the process of becoming a Transition Town in 2005, just as our community was celebrating it’s victory in a long battle against plans to put a Superstore at the end of our High Street. Inspired by Rob Hopkins’ description of the work done by his permaculture students in Kinsale, Ireland, we decided that we were ready to follow their example and develop our own Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP). As you will see, if you explore this site, we’ve gone some way towards this; learned a great deal; run several public events; and have two energetic groups with projects on the go up and running.  Clearly there’s plenty more to be done, but we feel that we’ve made a great start, and hope to inspire other communities in our turn.

Here are some ideas for how you can get involved.

Recent events:

• World Car-Free Day in Portobello. Every year, people from around the world get together in the streets, intersections, and neighbourhood blocks to remind the world that there is an alternative to our car-dominated society.
• Local Food Shindig

More information:

• Report from the ideas the November ‘Open Space’ forum
• A Sustainable Future for Portobello (13.34Mb download). A video produced by Bob Jefferson, with highlights of the public forum.
• Email group on Google

Press Coverage:

• Right-to-buy battle moves to the suburbs (The Herald, 29 November 2005)
• We’d have community spirit on tap in our pub (Evening News, 23rd July 2007)

PEDAL minutes and other documents:

• Current draft of Portobello Energy Descent Action Plan
• PEDAL Transport subgroup minutes 03.11.06
• PEDAL Land reform subgroup minutes 6.10.6

Related links:

• Portobello online: a community website serving residents, ex-pats and visitors to Portobello - Edinburgh's seaside.
• The Glasgow User Manual: A Glasgow guide listing all the things that are going on in our city. A reference you could pick up or have a look at if you wanted to find something to do by yourself or with the weans or to meet people, to find new places and things to do other than watching TV.
• Post Carbon Institute’s mission is to assist societies in their efforts to relocalize communities and adapt to an energy constrained world. “We believe that production of oil and natural gas will peak soon, climate change is worsening, and the current global economic system is unstable and reinforces huge disparities. Our response is to promote drastically lower consumption, greater local self-reliance, and more cooperative and inclusive communities.” (They reprint the Herald article about PEDAL.)

Many thanks to Polyp for use of the cartoons.
See: http://www.newint.org/shop/uk/bigbadworld.htm

Older stuff:

• From ‘Open Space’ tea-breaks to ‘Post-it’ celidhs!
• Community "Open Space" Forum on a Sustainable Future for Portobello.
• Press Release about the community forum.
• PORTOBELLO PLAN P? A Radical Vision For Sustainability Through Urban Land Reform — a paper by Justin Kenrick.

Page last updated: Thursday, October 11, 2007