At the end of last year the Scottish Parliament took an historic step by agreeing to the general principles of the Community Wealth Building Bill – an act that promises to rewire Scotland’s economy, ensuring that the wealth created in our communities stays in our communities, empowering local people to make their local economies work for them.

In the Stage 1 debate, MSPs from across the political spectrum recognised both the potential of this Bill and its necessity.

Richard Leonard MSP said: “we should have local economies where far more power rests in the hands of local workers and local communities.. We should have a redistribution of wealth and power.” While Jamie Greene MSP emphasised the Bill “must be meaningful, and it must deliver its intended purpose of improving the wealth of communities across the country.”

As the Bill progresses it presents a vital opportunity, but for it to be truly transformative it must empower the people and organisations already leading the way. As Willie Coffey MSP remarked, the “key to success” is simple: “work with local people to help them to progress their vision” “instead of driving the process from the top down”.

This is crucial. If this Bill becomes legislation in 2026, the real test will be whether it provides a lever for devolved decision making and investment to the local level. Public bodies should be partners, not just top-down directors, enabling the community anchors who have the trust and knowledge to deliver lasting change.

Daniel Johnson MSP of the Economy, Business and Fair Work Committee cited our evidence, stating: “although community lies at the heart of the concept of community wealth building, the bill makes no reference to the community groups, third sector groups or private sector representatives in the partnerships.”

This must change for the Bill to be effective in building on the viable community wealth building approaches that communities are already putting into practice.

The evidence is already here

Across Scotland, communities are already leading the way on building sustainable community wealth – they are proving what is possible when local people have the tools and trust to act. 

To help fill in the picture of what’s already happening on the ground, in Autumn 2025 we travelled the breadth of Scotland with storytellers from Greater Community Media, to tell the stories of how community organisations are shaping community wealth building in Scotland:

• In Glenfarg, a community rebuilt its bus service after commercial operators withdrew, reconnecting residents, and becoming a catalyst for wider regeneration.
• On Tiree, a community-owned turbine is powering investment into essential infrastructure, services, new homes and local businesses.
• In Langholm, the community completed an historic land buy-out to create the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve, and are now regenerating the land and the local economy.
• In Fort William, the Nevis Centre is Fort William’s village hall and economic engine under one roof, keeping a vital community space in local hands.
• In Govanhill, a community-led newsroom is showing how owning your own story is the first step to building community wealth, and strengthens local decision-making.
• In Midlothian, MAEDT is feeding the community’s soul through a community pantry, café, and a derelict bowling green transformed into a thriving community garden,  building local food security, skills and resilience.

These examples are not isolated anecdotes. They are a snapshot of the sophisticated, resilient, and beautifully diverse community sector that is holding Scotland together.

These organisations are the community anchors providing their communities with a fixed point to navigate from when it is most needed. And while each organisation has a different role in their communities, they are all vitally interconnected as the community sector.

Investment, not reinvention

The government’s role is not to reinvent this movement, but to invest in it.

Organisations like these should be at the forefront of shaping the future of community wealth building, because it is already their mission- building in the gaps where there is need, with limited resources they pull together, and achieve miracles.

Our sector could provide a blueprint for the future if Scotland is serious about moving to a wellbeing economy. For this to be realised, community wealth building needs to become a consistent cross-cutting priority across government.

To truly mirror the coordinated ecosystem of national networks and intermediaries representing Scotland’s diverse community sector, its principles must be built into economic development, planning, health, food systems, transport and climate policy. Their collective strength lies in deep local knowledge, shared learning and the ability to scale practical solutions. They provide a ready-made infrastructure that could deliver sustainable community wealth equitably and effectively. 

Local People Leading

In February the Scottish Community Alliance will host our Local People Leading, a national parliamentary event bringing our diverse sector together under one roof. It is a rare opportunity for the people running these community organisations to sit directly with the decision-makers shaping their future.

From deep dives into funding models that ensure natural capital assets deliver long-term benefits to the people of Scotland, to planning systems that put biodiversity and communities first, this event will lay out the priorities of what matters locally, and spotlight the collective contributions that are leading local democracy and community wealth building agendas.

A challenge for 2026

As the Bill progresses through Stage 2 and we look toward the 2026 election, the dial must shift.

Communities are tired of surviving on short-term project grants while delivering long-term essential services. It stifles their potential, and stretches their resilience. Sharon Hill from MAEDT asks: “Treat us the same way we treat our community. Trust us. Respect us and support us, but trust us to do what we do.”

Our series This is Community Wealth Building makes clear what’s possible when you combine care with persistence – that with trust and investment, communities can genuinely transform their futures for the common good. 

To turn this legislation into reality, we need a system that builds on and invests in the community wealth building communities across Scotland are already pioneering. We need multi-year funding, genuine partnerships, and a transfer of power.

Communities know that wealth is more than money – it is wellbeing, fairness, pride and opportunity. They have built the foundations. Now, decision makers must help them build the rest.

Read more from our series This is Community Wealth Building and what we’re calling for to support Community Wealth Building across Scotland.

The door to the shop at 82 Bowman Street in Glasgow’s Southside doesn’t stay closed for long. Just off the busy thoroughfare in Govanhill sits a little bright yellow shop front, gleaming like sunshine against the grey Glasgow sky. Proudly emblazoned above the door is ‘The Community Newsroom’. It is the first of its kind in the country. 

Beneath is inscribed an invitation, and statement of intent: ‘Everybody has a story, what’s yours?’

This is home to community magazine Greater Govanhill. Inside, the atmosphere is less like a corporate office and more like a bustling village square. On any given Tuesday, you might find a local historian scanning archives, a group of young Roma people learning photography, and people dropping in and heading out to tell the stories of Govanhill.

This is how news is made in Govanhill now. Not extracted by journalists parachuting in from distant newsrooms, but created by people who live here, for people who live here. The door is always open. Anyone can walk in with a story, pitch an idea, or simply be part of the conversation.

But for years, that wasn’t the story being told about Govanhill.

Reclaiming the narrative

“When I moved to Govanhill in 2018 I was immediately struck by the disconnect between the way Govanhill is often described in the media compared to the reality of actually living here” says Rhiannon Davies, founder of Greater Govanhill magazine.

“It was often described in quite negative terms, but what I found was a really vibrant, friendly community, with loads of great projects, creativity, and people making stuff happen.”

Rhiannon wanted to shift that narrative. She wanted to enable the people of Govanhill to tell their stories in their own words, to find genuine solutions to challenges the area was facing, and for neighbours to feel connected enough to create change together.

With a background in journalism, events and community development, she had the idea of setting up a community magazine. But she wanted this to be community-led. So in this neighbourhood that speaks 88 different languages, she started listening.

For a year Rhiannon went to events, cafés, local businesses, bus stops, community groups – anywhere where she could go and speak to local people, asking a simple but powerful question: What do you need to know?

Those hundreds of conversations fed into creating Greater Govanhill, a social enterprise and a community magazine rooted in what people actually wanted, rather than what she thought they needed. It is a radical new approach to local news, taking a solutions-focused and community-centred approach to storytelling as a vehicle for community development.

More than a magazine

Those conversations became the blueprint for Greater Govanhill’s approach. When it launched in 2020, people saw their ideas reflected back. “They actually listened to us,” became a common refrain.

Since launching, Greater Govanhill has published more than 20 editions of its free, high quality magazine, racking up numerous national awards. The bi-monthly magazine reaches an estimated 12,000 readers through 4,000 printed copies distributed by volunteers. There’s a website with no paywall, a radio show, award-winning podcasts, and now this physical newsroom space where they host events and hold the door open for anyone with a question or a story.

What Greater Govanhill does might look like journalism, but it functions more like social infrastructure.

“I wanted to create something that was beautiful, that made people feel proud when they saw it, that made people feel like they deserve to have something of this quality,” Rhiannon explains.

“People tell me they keep all the issues. They have them on their coffee tables, on their bookshelves. They show visitors, or send them to family back home, or to people who used to live here and moved away.”

Each bi-monthly issue is co-created with local community members, many of whom have no previous writing experience. To enable this, the organisation provides community reporter training for marginalised groups, which enables them not just to tell stories in their own words, but equips them with confidence, tools, and connections they need to make change happen. 

Over 150 people contributed to the magazine in 2022 alone, contributing writing, editing, illustrations and photographs. Volunteers deliver the 4,000 copies of each edition. The majority of contributors were first-time published writers, including young Roma people, Muslim women, LGBTQ+ residents, refugees, asylum seekers, and people from 13 different countries aged between 12 and 89.

“We’re not afraid to do things that journalists don’t usually do. We recognise that the journalist isn’t the person with all the answers” says Rhiannon, “we need more voices, and more diversity in the media, so we bring them in.”

Building community wealth through storytelling

This is how community media builds community wealth. It is reclaiming the narrative of the area, making people feel proud of where they live, making people feel more connected to each other and providing solutions-focused approaches to local issues. Almost all advertisers are local businesses and non-profits. And it is building the skills and confidence of individual contributors.

A young photographer with disabilities whose work was featured gained national exposure, grew in confidence, and secured a college place. A contributor with autism told the team that helping edit the magazine gave him the confidence to pitch a successful book project to a publisher. Eight new volunteers signed up at a community garden after seeing it featured. Through Greater Govanhill’s community reporter training, a young Muslim woman found her voice and decided she wanted to be a journalist, going on to secure an apprenticeship with the BBC and is now working as a journalist.

One reader credits the magazine with saving her life after learning about support for dealing with a problem landlord. Another wrote: “The magazine gave me an insight into many of these unknowns and reminded me that issues we face are being met with love, community spirit and a whole host of amazing people.”

Through telling the stories of the community, the magazine develops empathy and understanding between the people who live there. Neighbours increasingly recognise each other on the street, no longer as strangers, but as people with rich and complex histories, and shared interests and challenges. As one reader told Rhiannon’s team during lockdown: “Reading the magazine makes me feel more connected to both my neighbours and my neighbourhood”.

The power of the network

Creating something like Greater Govanhill is not easy. Advertising revenue for local news has all but collapsed, and funding is scarce, often only for short-term projects.

Seeing that there were other independent community-based publications across Scotland with shared challenges and learnings they could share, Rhiannon set up The Scottish Beacon in 2023. It is a collaborative network of 25 independent, community-based publications stretching from Shetland to Dumfries. Through it they provide peer support, sharing ideas, learnings, and skills, but also it is a platform for the publications to collaborate. 

“When one village hall closes in one community that’s a local story, but if it’s happening in 10 communities, there’s a bigger story here. The idea for The Scottish Beacon is to turn local stories into national influence” says Rhiannon.

No two outlets are the same in the Scottish Beacon. Some have small paid teams while others are entirely volunteer-run. Some operate as non-profits while others are sole traders, some publish in print while others are entirely digital. What unites all these publications is that they are owned and run locally, meaning decisions about what matters, whose voices are heard and how stories are told remain rooted in the community itself.

For members, the value is clear. Julian Calvert, editor of Scottish Beacon member The Lochside Press, said: “The Scottish Beacon project helps in showing that many of the issues we face here – ranging from energy to local democracy – are not just local, but part of a pattern across Scotland, helping us to find common cause with communities ranging from Galloway to Shetland.”

Building the support infrastructure

The success of Greater Govanhill and The Scottish Beacon proved a point: communities can run their own media and communities can be strengthened through it. But they shouldn’t have to figure it out from scratch. 

Recognising the need to support these community pioneers, and the opportunity of spreading the models being developed, in 2025 Rhiannon co-founded Greater Community Media. It supports people to launch community-led media projects, help existing news organisations to become more community-centred, and enables non-media organisations to use approaches like participatory storytelling and training community reporters.

It is dedicated to supporting the development of community-centred media. This approach puts listening, care, connection, and uplifting marginalised voices at its heart. It uses media as a tool to better connect and inform people, strengthening communities and enabling them to create change together. It invests in people’s capacity to tell their own stories, and builds their confidence and skills.

There are significant barriers for people wanting to set up or sustain community media organisations, with founders often facing isolation, lack confidence and skills, encountering high financial risk, and lack support networks. But Greater Govanhill and others in the Scottish Beacon show models that can be learned from and replicated. Greater Community Media exists to lower these barriers, and provide the support founders need.

Narrative power

Community Wealth Building is often associated with physical assets like land, buildings, and energy. But information and narrative power are assets too. Who gets to define local priorities, how problems are framed, and which stories gain visibility all shape what gets decided and done in communities. But when communities have more say over what stories are told, and feel better understood and connected to the people around them, they are better positioned to organise, to collaborate, and act on the things affecting their lives.

Community-centred media is a practical example of Community Wealth Building in action. It shows how by listening to people, responding to those needs, telling stories rooted in empathy, and reporting rooted in solutions, media builds the strength of a community. There is wealth in increased community pride and understanding, and when a community reclaims its voice and its narrative, it reclaims its destiny.

Community wealth building needs a platform for community voices to shape that conversation and decision-making. Greater Govanhill, The Scottish Beacon, and Greater Community Media are building the capacity for that – one story, one neighbourhood, and one network at a time.

The door is open. The stories are waiting to be told.

Read more from our series This is Community Wealth Building and what we’re calling for to support Community Wealth Building across Scotland.

Edinburgh is known as a global capital of culture. But three miles north of the city centre in Muirhouse, the story has often been one of exclusion. Until now.

Walk into the brand new MacMillan Hub in the heart of Muirhouse and you will sense the ambitious cultural revolution taking root. There, North Edinburgh Arts (NEA) is providing far more than a community centre. Operating a third of this £15m civic landmark they unite everything from art, dance, and music to textiles, woodwork, and yoga.

The facility houses a 96-seat theatre, a busy 72-seat café, and a wealth of creative spaces – including artist studios, wood workshops, and a music studio. The building also features a hot-desk mezzanine and a third-floor greenhouse, seeding stock for half-acre community garden. 

The hub is a testament to community ambition. The beating heart of this complex is owned and operated by the community. NEA, a locally-led charity, has operated here for 20 years, but their move into this purpose-built facility represents a seismic shift. It is a transition from tenants to landlords; from recipients of regeneration to the architects of it.

The community vision

In 2017, North Edinburgh Arts was at a crossroads. They had served the communities of Muirhouse, Granton and Pilton for 20 years, attracting 40,000 visits a year to their creative workshops and theatre. But they were tenants on Council-owned land in a building that was bursting at the seams.

For a community organisation, this was a moment of acute vulnerability. A regeneration plan for the area had been under development since 2008. The risk was real: their arts centre could be squeezed into a smaller space, or lost entirely, if not integrated into the new development.

NEA saw this vulnerability as an opportunity. They proposed a radical integration, putting the community at the centre of the new plans. They launched a Community Asset Transfer to buy their building and the supporting land, and gained overwhelming local support. 

Then, they challenged the design itself. NEA appointed their own visionary architects to reimagine their future. Determined to put the community at the heart of the new plans, they worked with the council to develop a proposal that integrated the arts centre into a new town square, alongside a new library, learning and skills hub, and early years centre. 

In a validation of their local ambition, the Council bought into this vision, selecting NEA’s architects to design the entire public hub. This was a quiet revolution in urban planning, with a community-led approach resulting in a joined up approach, building in a shared town square, with library and theatre sharing a single, light-filled entrance.

Building community wealth

To make it happen NEA successfully raised over £5 million in capital funding, including £1.7m from the Community Ownership Fund.

Crucially, the NEA third of the Hub is now owned by the community it serves, with 500 members from the local community signed up. This gives a sense of permanence, in an area undergoing new development: whatever other changes happen around them, “we will be here”, as well as integrating accountability and responsiveness into the local community.

NEA is proving that a community arts centre can be a potent economic engine. Recent analysis reveals the sheer scale of their multiplier effect: for every £1 of revenue the organisation receives, it generates £2.37 for the local economy, with approximately 44% going to local freelancers. They also make direct grants to local creative projects, having established an R&D fund, supported by Creative Scotland.

NEA is serious about Community Wealth Building, having hosted a “Community Wealth Builder in Residence” with local partner organisations to embed Community Wealth Building in their work, creating a dense network of local organisations all pulling in the same direction.

The organisation is also serious about reshaping what employment looks like in the sector. With a staff team of 24 and a robust Fair Work policy, NEA provides secure, high-quality jobs in an industry often defined by precarity. 

Unlocking opportunities

Inside the Hub, the Community Shed provides tools and training for woodworking and repair, while enterprise units offer affordable space for local makers. It is an environment that nurtures skills of local people, answering NEA’s Director Kate Wimpress’s question: “Where does the next generation of working-class artists come from?”. 

They come from here.

Kate underlines that there is a great amount of untapped potential in the area, and by providing cultural opportunities for less typically privileged communities, they can unlock a huge wellspring of talent that might otherwise be lost. 

Edinburgh is often noted for the ways its geography segregates different groups and social classes. Breaking down the divide of this “stratified city” is central to NEA’s mission. Having a “quality building” is critical, says NEA’s Director Kate Wimpress. It is their first tool to overcome negative preconceptions about this historically stigmatised area of the city. It should “look like an art gallery”, she says, and the work conducted there should be judged on those same standards of excellence.

There is a tangible sense that working-class communities are marginalised within the cultural sphere. Arguments persist that the Edinburgh Festivals are dominated by a small slice of society – those with the financial security to invest the significant sums often required to put on a show. As Wimpress puts it, living in Edinburgh is expensive, so following a creative path “without a safety net” is very hard. So NEA is creating those support structures for people in Muirhouse.

“Culture is ordinary,” says Kate, citing cultural theorist Raymond Williams. It shouldn’t be a luxury reserved for the city centre festivals; it must be woven into the fabric of daily life.  

The support net

Reaching this point required navigating a big imbalance of power. While the vision for the MacMillan Hub was shared, the legal reality involved a small local charity negotiating complex contracts with a major City Council and private housing developers.

This is where Community Land Scotland (CLS) became essential.

CLS is the representative body for Scotland’s aspiring and established community landowners. They offer a unique mix of on-the-ground technical support and national advocacy, translating the abstract rights of the Land Reform Acts into concrete reality for local groups.

For NEA, CLS acted as a bridge between the pioneering rural buyouts of the past and the new wave of urban land reform.

“Our movement has definitely been a rural to urban movement,” explains Josh Doble, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Community Land Scotland. “All the early work and the big thinking was done by the rural groups. Now, we are battling to get the urban groups to have the same level of respect and access to economic opportunities. There are clear lines from the inspiration of what has been achieved in rural areas flowing through to what is now happening in our cities.”

This support was vital in challenging the risk-averse culture often found in the public sector regarding community ownership.

“There is a huge section of very important, influential public bodies that have little concept of what the community sector already does,” notes Josh. “Ths community sector is a credible alternative to the public and private sector, generating a much better use of money, because wealth is kept and circulated locally.”

CLS helps to support and spread the work of organisations like NEA, proving that communities are competent developers capable of delivering and operating multi-million-pound infrastructure.

Things can change

Underpinning Kates’s optimism is her experience growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles – a time when change felt impossible. But change did happen. For peace to happen, it required people – including senior politicians – to “take big risks”. They demonstrated that politics was capable of achieving lasting change.

Similarly, the social and economic problems in Muirhouse are not insurmountable. Kate knows “things can change”. Things are changing in North Edinburgh, with NEA at the heart of that, and more change is on the way.

In a city often defined by its expensive festivals and historic divides, NEA stands as a beacon of a different kind of culture – one that is rooted locally, grown right here, and driven by the people who call this place home. By taking ownership of their land and asserting a new vision for their community, and for culture, North Edinburgh Arts is ensuring that as the skyline of North Edinburgh changes, the community remains central to the story. They drew the blueprints.

It rains in Fort William. It rains a lot. Sitting in the shadow of Ben Nevis, Fort William might be the Outdoor Capital of the UK, but when the West Highland rain sets in, the 12,000 people who live here need a roof over their head, and a warm place to come together.

For nearly thirty years, that place has been the Nevis Centre.

“Most people don’t live here because of what’s inside – there’s so much that goes on outside,” says Katie, a local mum and board member. “But we also don’t have the weather for that all year round. So it’s fantastic to have a space inside when we don’t have the sunshine.”

On those days – and there are many – the Nevis Centre glows like a beacon. Step inside on a wet Tuesday and you realise you aren’t entering a leisure centre, but the living room of Lochaber.

Inside the rain is drowned out by the tiny clatter and giggles in a tap dance class, the crash of bowling pins, and chaotic laughter of children chasing each other with toy lasers in the soft play, while their mums catch their breath over a cup of tea in the café.

With the nearest comparable facility 90 miles away, the Nevis Centre is a lifeline.

“We don’t have a town hall in Fort William,” says Chris Heardman, Chair of Linnhe Leisure, the charity that runs the Centre. “This is our town hall. This is our village hall.”

Everything for everyone

Hiding inside this cosy community space is a vast 700-capacity hall – home to the biggest stage in Scotland outside Edinburgh – and several large studios. These spaces are hired out for a vast array of activities and events, with commercial hires subsidising affordable community rates. 

The Centre wasn’t always run this way. The charity took over from a private company. “Instead of putting the money back into the centre, they were putting it into their pockets” says Chris, leaving the community with a building in need of some love. That is when the community stepped in, taking on a 127-year repairing lease, replacing a model of extraction with one of investing in the community.

Today, there are no shareholders. “Every penny we make goes back into the centre,” says Chris.

There’s an incredible variety of activities happening in the Nevis Centre, and demand for the space is enormous. They host concerts, conferences, and national festivals like the Royal National Mòd. “We could literally sell this room out probably ten times over because the demand is so high,” says General Manager Mark Ewen. “The challenge is trying to make everything fit.”

The revenue from a sold-out concert or a packed trade show subsidises the weekday evening Glee Club, youth drop-in sessions, community sport, art clubs, and the warm, welcoming space for the Montrose Group – a lifeline for adults with learning disabilities who come for meals, bowling, and silent yoga.

Getting the balance right between income generating commercial bookings and subsidised community bookings is an ongoing challenge for the Centre. “We work really, really hard with people to try to make sure that things are affordable,” says Mark. “What we generate as a company we put back in to support these things.”

More than bricks and mortar

The economic impact is staggering. Chris estimates that events like the Mòd can “bring about £15 million into the area,” filling every hotel and B&B in town.

But the community impact is just as big. Around 29% of the local community uses the centre every week, and for nearly 75% of them they have no alternative, with other options too far away.

“It’s like a gigantic town hall,” says Chris. “It’s a place where everyone can come together.” 

Sitting in the café, Katie agrees. She’s been taking her children to the Centre since they were babies. “Space to come together in community and actually see how much we have in common is so essential.”

In an area facing genuine challenges with social deprivation and rural isolation, the Centre is an essential shared space. “It’s a large community, but it’s a very small community because everybody knows everybody,” Chris says. That means when something happens, that can affect everybody, meaning a space to come together is vital.

“I have made friends here, I’ve kept friends here, we’ve kept each other sane here,” says Katie. For her daughter Lana, 12, the Centre is a social anchor: “After lockdown people were unconnected, this place brought people back together. I’ve made so many new friends during the clubs. If I didn’t have the centre I’d feel quite isolated.”

Mark and his team step up to the need not just to provide spaces, but to fill them with connection and care. In the games room, young people who might otherwise be at home gaming alone, or sitting in McDonald’s, have a dry, safe space where they can hang out together. “We try to kind of use it as a chance to talk to them, as well and give them an opportunity for them to talk to us,” says Mark.

These spaces are essential. Chris puts it plainly: “If you take away all our clubs and classes, there is nowhere else for them to go.”

The power of the network

Running a facility of this scale in a rural area comes with a unique set of challenges. Scottish Rural Action (SRA) makes sure they are never alone.

SRA acts as a bridge between rural and island communities across Scotland, and national policymakers, ensuring the needs and challenges of these grassroots organisations are heard and supported. “Our job is to shine a light on them,” says Artemis Pana, SRA’s National Coordinator. “To help them get the resources they need to take control of their own futures.”

In 2023 SRA hosted the Scottish Rural and Islands Parliament at the Nevis Centre, bringing 400 people who live and work in rural and island Scotland to discuss the issues that matter to them. This was a unique opportunity to share experiences, knowledge and ideas with people running similar organisations and buildings, realising their struggles weren’t unique. 

For Mark, it was eye-opening: “Regardless of the size of the building, we all had the same issues and concerns.”

The value of solidarity through these connections is not to be underestimated. “The benefits of being part of Scottish Rural Action is that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet,” says Chris. “You can go to a tiny place on Raasay with a tiny community hall, and they are having the same problems. It’s a morale boost. You don’t feel isolated, you don’t feel as if you’re the only person that’s struggling.”

SRA connects and amplifies these rural voices, turning individual challenges into a collective call for policy change. “Bringing everyone together allows you to share knowledge,” Mark says, “and have a bigger voice.”

The cliff edge

Despite their huge impact, the Nevis Centre walks a financial tightrope. The cost of living crisis has hit hard, and the current funding model is broken.

“The electricity is just one example,” Chris says. “It’s gone from £33,000 a year to £76,000 in three years. And that extra £40,000, where do you get it from?”

“We can’t simply transfer our increased costs for utilities onto all the local groups,” Mark says. “It’s not sustainable for them.”

Meanwhile, funding from Highland Council has dropped from £230,000 to £91,000, while their costs have doubled. Meanwhile funding applications are exhausting the organisation’s precious capacity. Chris describes spending 30 hours on an application for roof repairs.

“We actually live month-to-month on what we’ve got and there is no spare cash anywhere for anything,” says Chris. “The funding that Highland Council gives us every year – we don’t know until the end of March whether we’re actually going to get it for the next year. So we could be looking at another 90-odd thousand pounds that we’ve suddenly got to find from somewhere.”

Then there is the Fort William 2040 Masterplan, a Highland Council vision promising them a new building in fifteen years.But for the team holding the current building together, it feels like a frustrating limbo, and more uncertainty. “I don’t think this centre actually has 15 years,” says Chris, “we would like to have assurances that we are going to get the building that we actually need, and not what they want to give us.”

A model for the future

The story of the Nevis Centre is a story of Community Wealth Building in action: local control, local reinvestment, and economic and social value returned to the community. But for this model to survive, the system needs to evolve.

They need more understanding and recognition of the work they do, and the value it creates for their community. They need long-term, secure funding to give them the certainty they need to invest. 

“Listen to us, understand us,” says Mark, “and provide the reassurances that we need so we can continue to grow and strive, and be the vital community asset that is already here.”

Outside, the rain is still falling on Fort William. Inside, the lights are on, and singing soars to the rafters of the hall, the roof over Lochaber.

Read more from our series This is Community Wealth Building and what we’re calling for to support Community Wealth Building across Scotland.

Stand on the highest mound of the Lauriston Agroecology Farm, and the first thing that hits you is the wind. On a blustery day, 45mph gusts sweep in from the Firth of Forth, rattling the hood of your jacket. But look past the weather, and the view is spectacular: a sweeping panorama down to Cramond Island and across the water to Fife.

“The scenery and the variety of weather makes it a fantastic and inspiring place to work,” says Lisa Houston, a co-founder of Lauriston Farm.

For centuries, this view was exclusive. A 16th-century decree forbade building on this land to protect “the Lord’s view” from neighbouring Lauriston Castle. Today, that view – and the 100 acres of soil beneath it – has been reclaimed for the community.

Located between Silverknowes and the Cramond shoreline of northwest Edinburgh, Lauriston Farm might look like a modest allotment project to the uninitiated. Explore the full site, however, and the true scale of the project reveals itself, with a community orchard, market garden, community allotments and forestry. Founded on the values of food, community, and biodiversity, it is a sophisticated, professional enterprise run by an expert team with a clear vision for the land’s future.

Reclaiming the land

The transformation began in 2019, when this massive plot of land was dormant, used only for grazing and occasionally silage. It represented a classic failure of land use. A small group approached the council, urging them to hand the site over for community use. It wasn’t a simple process. It required setting up a workers’ cooperative, securing a positive public consultation with 1,000 local residents, and negotiating a 25-year lease.

Now, the Edinburgh Agroecology Co-operative is unlocking the land’s potential. By securing this asset, they have ensured that the value generated here – social, ecological, and economic – stays here.

A mosaic of habitats

Today, the Farm is bursting with life and activity. It operates with a blend of cutting-edge regenerative farming and ‘lost arts,’ consciously moving away from industrial agricultural norms, building wealth in the soil rather than extracting it.

The scale of ambition here is breathtaking. Since securing the land, the team has planted 12,000 trees and several hundred metres of hedgerow. The bulk of the tree planting is a mix of woodland habitat for wildlife, and an alley crop system. Between the long lines of the alley  trees they grow crops, and the trees help to regulate moisture and enrich the soil, add stability, and provide shelter from the wind, as well as future crops of nuts and fruit themselves.

The other trees are part of the Community Orchard; the fruit will be for the community to take and use, and the variety of trees create a ‘mosaic of habitats,’ promoting greater biodiversity, encouraging a rich wildlife community to flourish. 

Kate MacDougall, who leads communications for the Farm, is particularly excited about the wheatfields they have started. Using Granton Rouge d’Ecosse, a variety indigenous to Granton, they hope to eventually see bread that is from local wheat and locally baked by Granton Garden Bakery, another community organisation. 

Equally vital for biodiversity is seed saving, habitually keeping some crops aside for seeds to ensure organic growth and to maintain less common varieties. Lisa explains that the loss of this habit has resulted in a situation where most commercial seeds are provided by a small number of big players, often agro-chemical firms. By saving seeds like pumpkins, beetroot, and kale, Lauriston Farm is helping to maintain a diversity you won’t find in a supermarket.

The commitment to sustainability extends to the project’s goal of minimal waste and circularity. Lisa points to the “loop system” used with Rhyze Mushroom, one of the organisations involved, where waste products are used for a wormery, which in turn creates compost, ensuring nothing is wasted.

A sanctuary in nature

Lauriston Farm is creating a richer environment, and also providing a place for people to spend time in nature.

An established destination for urban walks, maintaining public access remains an integral part of the project’s identity. Visitors are encouraged to wander along a network of new way-marked routes. The sloping site offers glorious views down towards Cramond Island and across the Firth of Forth to Fife, retaining a uniquely rural feel despite being well-connected by public transport. 

Nurturing the community

Lauriston Farm is wedged between two golf courses and a nearby housing scheme. Surrounded by new residential developments, the project is perfectly positioned to tap into a diverse local population.

It has a well-used community allotment, with diverse groups using the space, including a partnership with a homelessness charity. The Farm helps people learn to grow, with a dedicated ‘community navigator,’ Hannah King. “We hold their hands,” Lisa says of new growers, helping them gain knowledge and confidence.

A core goal of the project is to increase access to affordable locally grown food. They recognise that access to green space is an element of inequality, so they prioritise allotment access to those who don’t have gardens of their own.

To support accessibility, the Market Garden operates a sliding scale model for its agroecological veg bags. With a base price of £12.50 for a bag, those who can pay more are encouraged to do so, subsidising those who can pay less.

“It must remain a mix,” Lisa emphasises. This isn’t charity; it is community solidarity. It ensures that access to high-quality, local food isn’t reserved for the wealthy, but also helps bring in essential income to keep the project financially sustainable, and paying staff a Real Living Wage. High-quality green jobs like these paying a Real Living Wage are a rarity in the agricultural sector.

The support network

Lauriston Farm is part of a wider movement championed by Nourish Scotland, an NGO working on food policy and practice. Simon Kenton-Lake, who leads on their food partnership work, sees Lauriston as a leading example of what a fairer, healthier and more sustainable food system could look like: “There’s food production, community engagement, there’s allotment sites, there’s commercialisation, and there’s some re-wilding of the land”.

Nourish Scotland works at the food systems level, breaking down the silos between public, private, and third sectors to create a joined-up approach where community food projects like Lauriston Farm can thrive.

Simon describes their role as connecting the dots across the system. “In order to create food system change, you need to have all stakeholders in the room,” he explains, “​​You can’t think about food insecurity without thinking about workers’ rights, without thinking about climate change or biodiversity.”

Through their coordination of the Sustainable Food Places network, Nourish ensures that grassroots energy from places like Lauriston is channelled upward to influence legislation like the Good Food Nation Act. They provide the strategic context that allows local groups to navigate the complex landscape of procurement and policy.

They are clear that community organisations need more stability and support. “Secure multi-year long-term funding is such a huge stumbling block that prohibits a lot of community organisations from developing long-term strategies” says Simon, “and restrictive funding criteria and specific evidence of impact constrains community organisations from doing what they do best”.

Addressing global challenges, locally

Through acting locally, the work of Lauriston Farm is fundamentally connected to major societal issues: climate change, inequality, social isolation, and a deep disconnection from nature and food production.

As a workers’ cooperative, they are showing how a community-led approach can revitalise land, with sustainable and regenerative practices managed by a democratic organisation. As an example of community wealth building in action, they provide fair work through Real Living Wage employment, creating local jobs, and building the skills and confidence of local people to grow their own food and connect with nature. Their supply chains could hardly be shorter, growing food sold locally and saving seeds.

In just a few short years, the Farm has already made impressive strides in both highlighting and beginning to address these complex, global challenges.

However, the team is candid about the challenges. Kate notes with humility that while they hope to inspire others, theirs isn’t the “only way”. But what they have proven is that with the right expertise, dedicated funding, and secure access to land, success is not just possible, it’s replicable – growing the wealth of Scotland’s communities.

Read more from our series This is Community Wealth Building and what we’re calling for to support Community Wealth Building across Scotland.