Author: Jamie Carpenter, Regeneration & Renewal

For housing and regeneration practitioners in Scotland, 2010/11 is shaping up to be a tough financial year.

The Scottish Government’s draft Budget, published earlier this month, reveals that spending on housing and regeneration in 2010/11 is likely to be nearly 40 per cent lower than in 2009/10. The draft Budget is subject to approval by MSPs but, as it stands, £33.5 million will be spent by the Government on regeneration in 2010/11 – down from £118 million in 2009/10. The plans in the draft Budget would also see investment in affordable housing fall from £583.4 million to £414.5 million over the same period.

The huge reduction in available funding for Scottish regeneration results mainly from the loss of the £60 million Town Centre Regeneration Fund, which only had a one-year lifespan. Nevertheless, other renewal budgets, including funding for community engagement, have also been reduced. Meanwhile, the £169 million drop in affordable housing cash is largely due to the Scottish Government’s decision to bring forward investment from 2010/11 to spend this financial year on keeping affordable housing construction moving during the recession. In bringing forward the funding, the Scottish Government has succeeded in doing as it intended. But the move has also left what the Scottish Building Federation has described as a “black hole” in the 2010/11 housing budget.

So what happens next? The Scottish National Party’s minority rule means that it needs support from other parties to get its Budget approved and so it may have to make concessions to win enough backing when MSPs vote on the Budget at the start of next year. The Town Centre Regeneration Fund was included in last year’s Budget in order to win the support of Conservative MSPs, so similar concessions should not be ruled out.

However, fears have been raised that the Budget in its current form will deal a fresh blow to Scotland’s regeneration sector, which is already struggling to get to grips with a new regeneration structure introduced last year by the SNP (see Feature, p18). There is concern that councils, which inherited regeneration functions from economic development body Scottish Enterprise, are finding it hard to master their new duties. Given the looming funding gap, it is vital that the Scottish Government acts to iron out these difficulties, and quickly.

Building the Local Food Movement
Scotland’s First Local Food Gathering
Saturday & Sunday 24 and 25 October, in Sunny Dunbar

Local food is on everyone’s agenda, from Transition initiatives to government policy makers. More and more people are aware that we need to develop a much more local, non-oil and chemical reliant food
infrastructure as a matter of urgency, because the present system is forcing us up hard against the limits of the global eco-system, manifesting as climate change, peak oil, peak phosphorous and a host of others.
The aim of this gathering is to help a Scottish food re-localisation movement cohere and develop strategic plans for taking the next steps, which will be revisited in another gathering in a year. Like many aspects of our society, our communities have been eroded by the focus on consumerism and the expectation of convenience made possible by easy access to cheap oil. There is a growing agreement that we need and want to reconnect with the process of growing and caring about our food. The gathering is aimed at the wide range of people who are already working towards a local/organic food infrastructure – people who are aware of the urgency of this task and are motivated to contribute to this dialogue and take away practical actions.
The gathering aims to:
• Develop an accurate picture of the situation in Scotland at the moment with regards to local food.
• Develop an understanding of how to go about food re-localisation, looking at range of ways in which is
being taken forward in Scotland and internationally.
• Establish strategic principles on how this process can be accelerated.
• Set practical objectives to be re-visited at another gathering next year.
This event organised by One Planet Food, Sustaining Dunbar, Soil Association Scotland and Transition Scotland Support

Have a look at these websites for more details:
http://www.transitionscotland.org/  
http://www.soilassociationscotland.org/  
http://www.sustainingdunbar.org.uk/

Click here  to book your place. Cost is £20 per place for individuals and £50 per place for funded organisations. contact: E.lesley@centreforstewardship.org.uk T. 01337 858838

A LACK of passengers is threatening the award-winning passenger ferry service between Jura and Tayvallich.

The service, which began as a pilot scheme two years ago, allows islanders to access mainland Argyll in less than one hour instead of travelling to the mainland via the neighbouring Isle of Islay.

It has also brought thousands of pounds in extra revenue to the island.

Argyll and Bute Council agreed to subsidise a three-year pilot scheme but the subsidy alone may not be enough to keep the service going, as it comes to the end of its second season.

And ferry operator Jura Development Trust is already trying to find an alternative means of funding, should council funding cease when the pilot scheme ends.

Whilst the ferry has been hailed as a great success by islanders, the lack of tourist traffic using the service has threatened its future.

Dick Mayes, former chairman of Initiative at the Edge, the group that established the ferry service, says the future of the service is uncertain.

He added: ‘The number of passengers using the ferry is not as high as we expected it to be, so the amount of money coming in is not enough to run a service six days per week, from Easter to the end of September.

‘After next year we really don’t know where the money is going to come from so we will need to assess that with the council and other organisations.

‘It is an absolutely brilliant service; you can go to Oban and back in one day and if you leave on the 7am, you can be in Glasgow by 11.30am.

‘It has also had huge benefits for the friends and family of people here, who have visited more regularly.’

Since 2003 Pulteneytown People’s Project has been working to develop an energy‐efficient Community and Regeneration Centre that will help regenerate the town and provide a facility that will meet the demands of the area.
Plans for this were drawn up based on the feedback we received from our initial community consultation four years ago, and these have been updated again recently to accommodate changing community needs, for example after consultation with Grey Coast Theatre, North Highland College, and Caithness Arts the plans now include an arts venue to seat up to 120 people.
In 2006 we secured a 50‐year lease from Pulteney Distillery for ground in Huddart Street, Pulteneytown. Our project intends to house all our existing services within the centre, as well as providing a community café, community facilities, recreational space, childcare facilities, office space, social economy business units, training facilities for college and lifelong learning opportunities, and an Arts Venue and exhibition space.

This £1 million grant will go towards the construction costs of our new centre. The centre will bring together existing projects and services operated by PPP and will provide additional space and facilities to accommodate more services and activities, including sports and drama activities, youth work and office space for service providers and social enterprises. The project will benefit 2000 people from the community of Wick.

Author: TfN

THE growing Scottish Eco-Congregations movement this week echoed a statement made by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland last week, that combating Climate Change is a moral issue.

The network of 224 churches from Shetland to Dumfries ac¬knowledged in a report this week that individually they could be doing more to combat climate change. It called on congre¬gations and individuals to find out what the carbon footprint of their churches and homes and lifestyles are and aim to re¬duce them.

Former Edinburgh City Council leader and the convenor of the Eco¬congregation movement Ewan Aitken said that congregations could be a catalyst for change across the whole world. Hopefully, in Scotland, he will be right.

The Eco-Congregation movement is an inspiration to the rest of civil society in demonstrating that part of living a socially respon¬sible life today is taking individual and group responsibility for climate change.

Some charities have long seen the link between climate change and their own remits. The consequences of global warming on developing world poverty has long been under¬stood by international aid and development agencies, like Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid, for example.

But closer to home many third sector organisations are fail¬ing to see the relevance of climate change on their activities. If their remit is to fight poverty and inequality in Scotland or work with disabled young people, why would they want to spend their valuable time and money joining a climate change coalition or creating a policy on global warming?

The truth is that it doesn’t have to cost anything – investing in video conferences instead of flying to London will save both time and money and decreasing energy consumption in the of¬fice will save cash. Also, creating and implementing a sustain¬able operations policy might just mean adapting current policies, and will only take a few hours.

Ultimately though the groups that Scotland’s voluntary sec¬tor is supporting are those most vulnerable to the effects of cli¬mate change. Should some of the truly catastrophic predictions come to pass, it will be the poor and the vulnerable that will suffer most. If more food shortages spread to the developed world, as many are suggesting, we will see availability and cost of our basic foods rocket. If energy prices rise, the number of people living in fuel poverty will also increase, forcing many more to decide between heating their homes or feeding their kids. If we start to see food and energy cuts and dramatic weather changes, such as flooding and hurricanes, those with chaotic lifestyles, already struggling to cope, will be at even greater risk.

As Eco-Congregations have realised, all of us have a social and moral duty to do what we can to combat climate change. A united civil society can make a major impact on something that has the potential to devastate our way of life; something which is happening now, in our generation, but will have major repercussions for the very future of humanity.

Whether a voluntary organisation aims to protect and support animals, people with drug problems, single parents, people with learning disabilities or the elderly, they need to help com¬bat climate change now.

Tripping Up Trump has established itself as the popular movement against the use of compulsory purchase for private profit. This fresh and energised campaign is standing up for the people and environment threatened by Donald Trump’s development in Aberdeenshire.

This real life story is no longer just about whether you agree or not with the controversial housing and golf complex. This is now about protecting the families that are being threatened by compulsory purchase, not for a school or a hospital but for private profit.

The residents of ‘Menie’ have again and again stated they do not wish to sell and only ask to be left alone in peace but Donald Trump will not accept this fate. Worse still, planning permission was granted on the grounds that he had all the land he needed.

This is why Tripping Up Trump will stand strong and protect the residents of ‘Menie’ from the lurking threat of compulsory purchase. What is happening to the homeowners could happen to anyone else, once a precedent is set.

We ask the councillors to immediately take the responsibility to deal with the situation at hand.

We need your support to make this happen, spread the word, sign the petition and join the campaign. http://www.trippinguptrump.com/

The story of one of the families under threat

David Milne knows how to show a girl a good time. Eighteen years ago, when he was a 27-year-old just back off the rigs, the Aberdonian’s life was just beginning to slot into place. He’d met the woman with whom he wanted to share his life, and had just found the house where he wanted them to grow old together.

Their first date was an unconventional one, where he introduced one future love of his life to the other. He needn’t have worried. Moira, the bubbly hairdresser and object of his affections, was as smitten with the house as she was with him. She didn’t care that the mouldy old coastguard station was a wreck, that it was down a pot-holed farm track, that it was perched on a hill and being battered by the 40mph winds and lashing rain that roared off the North Sea. Instead, she looked at the panoramic views, of Aberdeen Bay to the south, Peterhead to the north, and she fell in love too. That’s when Milne knew she was the woman for him.

It is, says Milne, difficult to overstate how important Hermit Point is to Moira and himself. He carried her over the threshold here, and they have spent much of the past 17 years doing the place up, “taking it from being a pretty manky, disused coastguard lookout station to being a real home,” as he puts it. “I’ve rebuilt this place with my own hands; it’s been a two-decade labour of love and I’ve put my blood, sweat and tears into this place. I love it here: it’s a home for life, and I expected to see out my days here. I always said that they’d carry me out of here in a box.”

Milne is one of the five refuseniks who have said they don’t want to sell their homes to Donald Trump so he can build the houses to accompany the “world-class” golf courses he wants to construct on his Menie Estate just north of Aberdeen. Standing outside Milne’s house on a preternaturally calm October morning, with some of the most spectacular views in Scotland before you, it’s easy to see why he isn’t interested in selling. You can see 40 miles from here, and the light coming off the sea from the mottled sky creates a memorable effect. From his living room you can watch the ships coming in and out of Aberdeen Bay; Milne says that it’s just as beautiful at night, with Aberdeen lit up and the ships specks of light in the gloaming. “Like the Bay of Naples,” he says.

Below us, between his house and the unique 8,000-year-old shifting dune system that fronts on to a long snake of white sand that separates land from sea, is a small valley of boggy grassland with a house here and there. The valley belongs to Menie Estate, home to one of the country’s most famous golf courses even though it has yet to be started. Anyone who has ever hacked their way around 18 holes can see it is the most perfect land on which to build a links; you can almost see where the fairways and greens would go, following the natural contours of the land.

Milne can remember when he first heard rumours the 1,400-acre estate had been sold to be turned into a golf course. “We just thought ‘oh aye, that’ll be right’,” he says. “And then I got this phone call from a man calling himself Peter White who said ‘I’ve been shooting on the Menie Estate and I’ve fallen in love with your house, would you consider selling it?’ to which the answer was no. A couple of days later we found that everyone (on the estate] had had the same call. It turns out it was (Trump operative] Neil Hobday. I don’t like liars.

“Can you really believe he thought we wouldn’t talk to each other? I think he thought we are all as stupid as he is. He’s incredibly thick. He appeared on the doorstep with some woman in tow, who he said was his wifeand I haven’t seen since. This time he said’you said you’d be interested in a really good offer…’ so I said ‘no I didn’t, I said no!’ and shut the door in his face.”

It wasn’t a good start to relations so Trump personally sought to allay the fears of those homeowners living either within the old Menie Estate or next to it.

“In May 2006 all the residents on the estate were invited up to Menie House – it turned out to be a tent in the garden, but never mind – at which they presented a very vague drawing, more like a zoning diagram, plus a plan in which there were going to be two courses, 150 houses and a 200-bedroom hotel. I was never mad keen on the idea, but compared to what you could get as a neighbour it was OK. So I was never a supporter, but I was never dead set against it. As long as they stayed off the SSSI (the dunes, a Site of Special Scientific Interest], I was happy to consider it.

“At that meeting, Trump made a point of saying ‘I only need 160 acres to build an 18-hole golf course, but I will do it in 200. I’ve got 800 acres, so I don’t need your homes.’

LPL Land Reform Seminar
13th October 2009
The Tolbooth, Stirling

The purpose of this Seminar is to consider how to promote greater progress with land reform in Scotland.

Land reform was a defining issue when the Scottish Parliament was established 10 years ago and there have been important reforms since then.  However, there is increasing recognition that there is a need now to take stock and re-build momentum to ensure a continuing programme of land reform measures.

The Seminar will be based around presentations by Robin Callander and Andy Wightman on the history and development of the land reform agenda and priorities for the future.

The Seminar follows LPL’s initial meeting about land reform in June (Note of Meeting below) and will include feedback from two other recent land reform events– The Conference at Aberdeen University on Land Reform in Scotland (3rd September) and the Seminar in North Harris on Community Land Ownership (29th / 30th September).

Anyone wishing to attend this seminar, who has not already done so, should contact: angus@localpeopleleading.net

Key outcomes of previous LPL meeting on land reform held June 16th  in Edinburgh
Main concerns  expressed at meeting
 
·         Government enthusiasm for land reform has cooled
·         Land Reform  (Scotland) Act 2003 is not delivering expected outcomes
·         Previous commitment from Scottish Executive/ Scottish Government to  review the operation and effectiveness of Land Reform Act has not been fulfilled
·         Levels of investment in a comprehensive programme of community asset acquisition and development have stalled
·         Standard of community capacity building per CLD is inadequate to meet the demands placed on community bodies in the pre and post acquisition of assets.
·         Transfers of local authority assets into community ownership are ad hoc and lack a national strategic focus viz a viz that provided by the Quirk Review in England
·         Common Good assets remain poorly documented with persistent financial irregularities and little opportunity for meaningful community oversight.
·         A commitment from Scottish Government to produce guidance for local authorities on the disposal of public assets at less than best consideration has not been fulfilled.
·         Scottish Government’s Community Empowerment Action Plan is not currently a cross government policy priority and consequently the community asset agenda sits outwith mainstream policy thinking
 
 
What action is required:
Proposed that a campaign of coordinated action should be pursued under the auspices of Local People Leading which should include the following key areas:
 
·         Community Right to Buy.   Registration and re-registration procedures should be simplified.  Scope of the Act should be extended to cover all land in Scotland.   Significant investment is required to raise awareness and understanding of the Act.
·         Investment.  Further public investment is required to support asset acquisition allied to new regulations and guidance to facilitate greater levels of transfer of public assets into community ownership
·         Capacity building support. More effective and appropriate levels of community development support should be available to communities to assist in pre and post acquisition support.
·         Common Good. All Local Authorities should have accurate asset registers and strategic plans for management of common good assets. Communities should be provided with greater powers over their Common Good 
·         Crown Estates. The Crown Estate in Scotland should be reformed as proposed in the report – New Opportunities for Public Benefits and endorsed by HIE, COSLA  and six local authorities from the Highlands and Islands.
·         Research and development.  Commission longitudinal research into community asset ownership to study impact on community resilience, social capital and wider impacts on civil society.
 
 

Author: David Quinn, Regeneration & Renewal, 7 September 2009

The Conservative Party plans to devolve control of urban regeneration to community partnerships at the “street level” to better engage local people if elected to government, the shadow housing minister has said.

Following a speech to the Royal Institute of British Architects, Grant Shapps told Regeneration & Renewal that rather than having regeneration initiatives driven downwards from government through a series of quangos, such as the Homes & Communities Agency and the regional development agencies, the Tories would devolve control of regeneration to the “very lowest levels” of government, including at the parish and ward level. He said he wanted to cut back the “layers of impenetrable bureaucracy” and “force power down” to “street level”.

Shapps said: “Bureaucracy is a huge problem. The scale of regeneration that’s needed is so large that if you want to do it from the top down, the risk is that you don’t fulfil people’s aspirations. We want people to take control of the problem much quicker. Under a Conservative government, you wouldn’t have to sit around and wait for regeneration to come to you.”

Shapps said the strategy could involve encouraging communities to form partnerships, such as those developed by charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The idea of empowering “community advocates” could be an “important additional element” in the regeneration process, he added.

Chris Brown, chief executive at developer Igloo Regeneration, welcomed the proposals.

“Where large-scale regeneration is required, the community will need partners to undertake delivery, but having local communities shape regeneration plans is undoubtedly the way to go,” he said.

Change the direction of travel – invest in community led regeneration

The consultation being led by Scottish Government on how Scotland’s share of the dormant bank accounts should be spent and the associated the debate that is has stimulated across the Third Sector is to be welcomed. This financial windfall presents a unique opportunity for Scotland to fundamentally challenge and improve upon existing orthodoxy in terms of how to tackle the deep rooted and enduring challenges in Scotland’s most deprived communities.

This proposal is based on the following propositions concerning Scotland’s community regeneration policy over the past 25 years :

• That despite a succession of targeted, area based regeneration initiatives over this period, the baseline indicators of improved outcomes for the people living in these communities show that little meaningful progress has been achieved
• That these initiatives can be characterised as being, without exception, top-down and led by the local authority in partnership with other public sector bodies.
• That these initiatives result in programmes of short term funding for community based projects that are not able to sustain themselves beyond the end of the regeneration scheme.
• That despite the evidence that this top down, short term investment approach has failed to make a sustained impact, the same approach with minor modifications, has been applied repeatedly ever since New Life For Urban Scotland in the early 1980’s.
• That regeneration policy and practice in Central/Lowland Scotland has failed to recognise the value of lessons learnt in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in relation to the potential impact of community ownership and control and the importance of linking social and community development with economic growth.

The annual turnover of Scotland’s Third Sector is approximately £3.7 billion. In relative terms, £40m is a small amount of money and there is a real danger that if it is committed along existing patterns of expenditure, it will generate little in terms of overall impact and additional value.

It could however be used in such a way that would both signal the start of a new era in the regeneration of our most deprived communities, and provide the Government’s current policy commitment on community empowerment with a flagship initiative that would reinforce its devolutionary credentials.

The proposal – to establish community endowments

The £40m should be used to establish a £2 million endowment fund in twenty of the most deprived communities in Scotland (the index of deprivation that is used should include a rural component) under the ownership and control of a community owned regeneration vehicle. Each endowment would be set up as a legal trust and managed by a team of professional fund managers contracted to work with a nominated local anchor organisation. Each community would enter negotiations with the awarding body (BIG Lottery) as to which local anchor organisation should assume the role of ‘accountable body’ for the endowment. The nominated local anchor organisation and the management arrangements for the endowment would be subject to rigorous due diligence, with a requirement that reporting on investment decisions and any disposal decisions with regard to the income generated, have to be wholly transparent and publicly accountable.
If implemented, this proposal would fundamentally change the framework within which local regeneration could take place. It would:
• provide the community with a long term income stream that is not dependent on the continued patronage of a grant provider
• change the dynamic of the relationship between the community and other stakeholders . The power imbalance created by the ‘begging bowl’ culture would become less significant.
• enable the community to take their place at the ‘partnership table’ as a genuine partner with a financial stake to contribute towards common objectives
• enable the community to assume greater control in determining what local priorities it chooses to address
• increase levels of community self confidence and local capacity as the sense of controlling more of their own destiny grows

Underpinning this proposal is the principle that the people who live in a community are best placed to lead any process of change or renewal that occurs within that community and should always be given the opportunity to do so. Furthermore, inherent in this proposal is a recognition that when local people are presented with this type of opportunity, a hitherto untapped pool of creative energy and local commitment and effort can be harnessed and channelled towards the overall regeneration effort.

As supporters of Local People Leading – The campaign for a strong and independent community sector, the organisations listed below endorse this submission to the Scottish Government as part of the Consultation on Dormant Bank Accounts.

Signed

Angus Hardie
On behalf of
Local People Leading – the campaign for a strong and independent community sector

Development Trusts Association Scotland
Community Recycling Network Scotland
Community Retailing Network
Community Transport Association Scotland
Transition Scotland
Senscot
Employers in Voluntary Housing
Community Woodlands Association
Community Energy Scotland
Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations
Scottish League of Credit Unions
Time Banking Scotland
Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens
Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AND SINGLE OUTCOME AGREEMENTS
 
Introduction and summary
 
1.  Senscot and the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition commissioned the Pool – DTA Scotland’s consultancy service – to review the Single Outcome Agreements for 2008 and 2009 to assess how far social enterprise was reflected in them.  A SOA is the means by which Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) agree their strategic priorities for their local area and express those priorities as outcomes to be delivered by the partners, either individually or jointly.  Overall, 21 of the SOA’s in 2009 had no or very limited references to social enterprise.  SOA’s for rural areas tend to have stronger references to social enterprise than urban ones.
 
Single Outcome Agreements: Purpose and Importance
 
2.  The Concordat between the Scottish Government and COSLA agreed in November 2007 set out the terms of a new relationship between the Scottish Government and local government. It underpins the funding provided to local government over the period from 2008-09 to 2010-2011.
 
3.  A central element of the new relationship was the ending of ring fencing of local government funding and the creation of a Single Outcome Agreement (SOA) between each council, initially, and the Scottish Government, based on the 15 National Outcomes. All SOAs from 2009-10 onward will be between each Community Planning Partnership (CPP) and the Scottish Government. A SOA is the means by which CPPs agree their strategic priorities for their local area and express those priorities as outcomes to be delivered by the partners, either individually or jointly, while showing how those outcomes should contribute to the Scottish Government’s relevant National Outcomes.
 
4.  As such, the content of SOA’s are an important indication of the extent to which the support and development of social enterprises is seen as a priority to local authorities and CPP’s. Consequently, Senscot and the Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition (SSEC) decided to commission a review of SOA’s to see to what extent and how social enterprise features in them.
 
Methodology of the review
 
5.  All the SOA’s produced in 2008 and 2009 were reviewed to identify references to social enterprise (or failing any reference to social enterprise to  community enterprise or the social economy) in the 2008 and 2009 documents.  The main information fields in which substantive references will be found in the documents are in the context of the area (i.e. the characteristics and issues facing the area), local outcomes, local indicators and actions required by either local partners or other agencies.  References across all four fields would represent the strongest inclusion of social enterprise in SOA’s and no references will be the weakest.
 
 
Main findings
 
6.  The key findings are:
 
• Only one SOA in 2009 had references to social enterprise in all 4 information fields – context, local outcomes, local indicators and actions – compared to 2 in 2008.
 
• 12 SOA’s in 2009 had no references to social enterprise in any of the four fields and 9 had only one reference ( compared to 10 and 10 in 2008)
 
• the references in the 2009 SOA’s were 12 in context (10 in 2008) ,10 in local outcomes (7 in 2008), 11 in local indicators (12 in 2008) and 6 in actions (14 in 2008)
 
• The changes between 2008 SOA’s and 2009 SOA’s are not highly significant overall given that the 2009 SOA’s were prepared in a different way.
 
• Overall, it appears that SOA’s for rural areas –especially those in the Highlands and Islands – are more likely to contain references to social enterprise compared to those in urban areas. 
 
Conclusions
 
7.  Overall, social enterprise is not strongly represented in the SOA’s.  The strongest representation is in SOA’s for rural areas, the weakest in urban areas.  There have been no overall significant changes overall between 2008 and 2009.