A Way Forward for Community Regeneration?
A local project which hopes to oversee the regeneration of Granton’s waterfront is asking the local community to support a bid for Lottery funding.
Granton Improvement Society says, if successful, a lottery grant would be used to stage art work for a garden festival, employ a member of staff and take regeneration plans on to the next stage.
Granton Improvement Society administrator Ross McEwan explained: “GIS was invited to make an application to the BIG Lottery Peoples Project for an award of £50,000. The process involves joining the community blog that they had set up – we had to write a 500 word submission on the blog page together with three images.
“The shortlisting process will take into consideration comments made on the blog, so we are asking members to please make comments in as positive a way as possible, especially about what huge benefits would come to the community from the income generated and from the major new facilities in the area.”
In ‘Granton on Sea – A Way Forward for Community Regeneration’, their submission to the webpage, GIS say:
‘We held several public events with guest speakers, this has increased the membership from local people considerably and means the GIS is now the largest membership organisation in the area.
‘A new exhibition of the current project proposals and promotional material have proved to be a great success especially when attending events and for getting the project more visible in the local community and with City Councillors.
All of these new initiatives have helped in being commissioned by Scottish Government Regeneration Unit and DTAS/COSS to undertake an Asset Mapping exercise over the whole area we have chosen to work within.
The project will allow us to find out what the physical and social assets are of the area. As part of this we will identify the wider community need and aspirations, this information will lead to a community plan and strengthen the communities
Since the Granton Improvement Society was established in January 2013 the membership from local residents has gradually risen to just under 200, The management committee of 11 trustees is comprised of seven local residents and four who are just on the boundary of the EH4 & EH5 area that we have chosen to operate within.
If we were successful the new money would take the project to a stage where we would do small art interventions related to the garden festival in underused derelict green space, the focus of which is creative design, all will be for the community to undertake. We will show the health and wellbeing benefits of the outdoors and creative process.
As part of the new exhibition we have taken the design proposals to another more detailed stage in preparation for a future planning application in doing so it has brought the landowner to the table to negotiate the sale of the land.
New money would allow us to commission architects and energy consultants to explore the sustainability and environmental impact of the project. A model of the project will be commissioned something which is more accessible than architectural drawings. A more detailed financial impact study should prove the community benefit of the project locally and nationally.
A Social Hub: reaching out to a wider community base.
Sea containers will be bought and converted using local people gaining construction skills, this would be the studio space for the GIS, the local community could come and interact with the project and talk about needs and aspirations. This will inform the project.
It will allow us for the first time to employ a dedicated project worker and not rely upon volunteers all of the time, local people will gain skills, training and education.
More community events would be organised, creating greater community involvement and a more cohesive and resilient community.
All of these bigger initiatives will create a sense of community ownership, pride and care for the future when the project is realised. It will be owned by the community through large community consultation and participation.’
To make a comment on the Granton submission, go to
Ross added: “Go to top right of page ‘Not a member yet?’ and join. Just follow the instructions. After registering you are directed to a Welcome page. Go to the heading The Peoples’s Projects. On this page go to Search Blogs by ITV region – we are in STV East.
“Our blog is the fifth one in the list. Open the blog and and join the group at top right of the page then you should be able to begin commenting at the end of the blog in the comments box. We want as many of you as possible to do this!”