PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE
Portobello Energy Descent and Land Reform Group (PEDAL), Edinburgh, are organising a Community 'Open Space1' forum for Sunday the 27th of November from 1.30-5.30pm. This will aim to build on the success of the Portobello Campaign Against the Superstore. The purpose of the day's forum is to develop a range of imaginative initiatives - including pushing for a community buy out of the 'superstore' site - as part of creating a sustainable future for Portobello, and creating a radical urban role model that other communities and cities could follow.
At the heart of the forum will be plans for community use of a piece of land which was recently at the centre of a fierce battle between the local community and developers who wanted to build a superstore on it. The superstore was very unpopular with local people, and the community scored a victory when planning permission was refused at a public inquiry earlier this year. Unfortunately, though current legislation in Scotland gives rural communities the right to buy land they need to sustain their way of life (e.g. the community buy-out of the Isle of Eigg in 2002); urban communities do not have this right. PEDAL are hoping that the community in Portobello can put pressure on the Scottish Parliament to change the law so that the community can make constructive use of this land. One possible future use for the land would be to establish socially affordable and ecologically imaginative housing as part of a broader Sustainability Centre which might include a Centre for Alternative Futures similar to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales2, or the Eden Project in Cornwall. This might include exhibition space focusing on sustainable city designs and hands-on exhibits bringing together pressing issues and community solutions to problems such as climate change and the challenge of transforming society from an economy based on diminishing supplies of oil to one based on ecologically and socially satisfying and sustainable practices. Such a Centre could create a range of new local jobs and attract a whole new form of urban ecological tourism to the area. The Centre could also provide a focus for the further development of the community sustainability blueprint, possibly centred on a 15-year step by step Energy Descent plan for Portobello
The first of these Energy Descent Plans was created last year in the town of Kinsale in the west of Ireland3, and the idea has spread internationally since then. Participants look at a range of areas of importance to their community (such as food production, energy production, transport, housing, livelihoods...) and generate ideas about how to use progressively less energy in meeting their needs. This offers a new model for communities to make changes which address mounting threats such as climate change and peak oil4 in a way which will not only give them the best chance to successfully manage potential future crisis situations, but also increases community cohesion and empowerment in the meantime. In a time when central government seems unwilling to take serious action on these issues, and individual action can feel woefully inadequate, community action of this kind is inspiring and empowering.
ENDS ENDS ENDS ENDS ENDS ENDS ENDS ENDS ENDS ENDS ENDS
If you would like further information, or would like to attend the community forum, please contact me by email or phone.
Portobello Energy Descent and Land Reform Group (PEDAL),
1 Open Space is a meeting format, designed to make better meetings for large numbers of people dealing with a lot of complex information. See: http://www.openspaceworld.org/wiki/wiki/wiki.cgi?AboutOpenSpace
4 Peak Oil refers to the peak of total global oil production, from which point oil prices will increase to the point where our current way of life becomes impossible. See: http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php