News

The Lochend Community Growing Project has received confirmation of match funding from SNH and Edinburgh Council.  There are still some t’s to cross and i’s to dot, but I hope we can have a project start in August.  It’ll be great to get on site whilst there are still long summer days.  We hope that we can have the first …

Had a great meeting today with CEC Council Officer to look at the GIS mapping tools available to the Council. There is great potential to use GIS to pull together information regarding parcels of land, ownership of adjoining households, condition and management of land etc. to develop a tool for planning the development of community gardening projects in Council estates.

The Big Lottery announced the Community Spaces fund in June.  The fund has been conceived to support projects like village halls and community gardens.  I went along to one of the roadshows last week to get a better of understanding of how the fund will operate. I would recommend it to anyone thinking of applying to the lotteries to go …

Thats the first stage of the Re:Solution website published.  This will allow us to get on with promoting the community growing initiative.  The second stage of the roll out will include more information about projects, and a video about community growing.

We’ll be coming to the end of the Lochend & Restalrig Community Growing Study in March (website). Its gone really well, identified a great site and a lot of interest from local households and organisation. Hopefully we’ll be securing some sizeable grant support from the Council soon. With any luck we can start on site in May ’11.

This April I’ll be going part-time with Edinburgh Community Backgreens Association. The intention is that it will enable me to spend time developing more ‘community growing’ projects, and to return to research and development in Co-housing. Its a bit nerve wracking but exciting too. Hopefully it will be a new chapter, and open up new opportunities.