The City of Edinburgh Council just passed a motion to develop a proposal for a public diner trial in the city. On Thursday 8 May, Councillors debated a motion to trial publicly funded restaurants serving healthy, tasty, affordable meals to the general public. Along side public transport, public leisure centres, public libraries, public hospitals –public diners would be public infrastructure for food.

Scotland used to have over 90 publicly supported restaurants – known as British and Civic Restaurants – during the 1940s and 50s. The UK had over 2000 in total (more than Greggs and Wetherspoons combined). Today there are successful international examples of governments investing in restaurants so that the price is low, and quality is high. If Edinburgh gets a public diner it will lead the way on new public infrastructure in the UK and immediately deliver on big ticket public health, climate and social objectives.

What are public diners?

Public diners are a policy proposal for government to support a chain of restaurants open to the general public that serve high quality, tasty food at low prices. Food policy organisation, Nourish Scotland, has been working on this proposal for the last three years. It sees public diners as a way for the state to deliver its duty to protect the right to food and help address major issues associated with the current food environment: health, climate, social fabrics.

Nourish have drawn inspiration from the historical precedent of British Restaurants and from successful current international examples to develop a blueprint for public diners in Scotland and the wider UK. Their ongoing consultation effort with people from across the food system has come up with 7 core principles that define what a public diner is:

1. State supported. Public diners are underwritten by state support. They operate with public support for public good.
2. Universal. Public diners are open and accessible to everyone. They are not targeted at or exclusive to a particular group.
3. Here today, here in a decade. Public diners are here for the long run. They have a sustainable, resilient business model.
4. Democratic. Public diners are democratic institutions. They have formal mechanisms for public scrutiny and participation.
5. A place you want to dine. Public diners are restaurants. They have a reputation for quality, enjoyable dining experiences.
6. Affordable. Public diners are always affordable. The price is not a barrier to eating at a public diner.
7. Real good food. Public diners model good food culture. They have menus that are a good fit for peoples’ lives and cultures, are healthy enough and environmentally sustainable.

What happens now?

A public diner trial will be considered in Edinburgh. Let’s say it’s taken forward- then Edinburgh could be the first city in the UK to have a public diner.

That public diner would need to be delivered inline with the 7 core principles. It would need to have a reliable business model sustained by some form of public funds/support. It would need to be open and affordable to everyone and look, feel, taste like a place everyone wants to dine. It would need to create new, highly valued jobs and new local, climate friendly routes to market. Above all, its meals would need to be hearty, healthy, tasty and reflective of the people it serves.

An international blueprint

If international examples of public diners are anything to go by –this is the trail that is usually blazed when it comes to getting public restaurants up and running. In Türkiye, the halk lokantasi (public restaurants) serving four course meals for the price of a cup of coffee now operate in over six municipalities across the country. This all started when the mayor from Istanbul began the first public restaurant. The operation of this restaurant said to the rest of country: this model works. From day one, people went to the restaurant – enough for it to break even (thanks to economies of scale) and enough for it to make a real improvement to everyday lives(convenience, health, community). It also didn’t particularly bother private food businesses like some thought it might. People were still going out to their specialty restaurants and coffee houses – in fact, the restaurant has probably generated more footfall and freed up more income to be spent elsewhere. After only a few months of successful operation, more municipalities began investing in their own chain of halk lokantasi.

In Scotland, the story might be very similar. Different local authorities trial public diners, more follow. There would probably need to be the extra, critical step of national backing to roll out public diners across the country. Local authorities are certainly the delivery arm of policy in Scotland, but they need sustainable backing at a national level – especially for something that needs to be ‘here for the long run.’ Baked into any trial of public diners would be channels to the national government that say, ‘look at this, this is a smart public investment.’

If other local authorities think public diners are a good idea they should be watching and putting in their own motions – the more debate, the better. As for Edinburgh, it can’t hurt to start dreaming up a site for the first public diner. Maybe it’s the Assembly Rooms, right there on George St, which the Council already owns. Or even Summerhall – given how much energy is building against turning it into luxury apartments. I’ll leave the last words to Edinburgh Councillor, Kayleigh O’Neill, who spoke in favour of the motion for Edinburgh to get a public diner: “Wherever it is, I look forward to joining you all for a lovely meal when it comes.”

Public diners supporter network

Nourish Scotland is pulling together a wide, diverse network of supporters for the public diners proposal. The aim of this network is to build a broad, diverse consensus of support for public diners. The commitment is small- your organisations logo and if you wish, a couple of sentences about why your organisations supports public diners (i.e. more routes to market for local produce, more and better jobs in the food sector, public health, communities, the right to food for everyone).

Contact abigail(at)nourishscotland.org.uk

The Community Enterprise Fund, from Firstport, is a funding programme that helps community organisations to start trading or set up social enterprises in Scotland. It offers grants of up to £5,000, to be spent over 6 months. Funding comes from the Scottish Government’s Social Entrepreneurs Fund (SEF).

The Community Enterprise Fund is for you if your group wants to begin trading activities or set up a social enterprise so you can generate income, become more financially resilient, reduce reliance on grant funding and be better equipped to support your community.

Your community group is ready to apply for a CE award if it can demonstrate:

• A strong business model- showing how the idea will generate income, so it does not rely on grants in the long term.
• A clear social impact– demonstrating that your group has identified a social or environmental issue they want to tackle.
• A determined and motivated team – SEF focuses on the people involved in the idea, so we want you to tell us about the skills, knowledge, and passion within their team for the issue they are tackling and how these will help to make the idea a success.

Find out more from Firstport

With funding from Foundation Scotland, DTAS have announced the development of a new £5 million funding programme exclusively for their members focused on recovery and resilience.

The programme aims to serve three core purposes:

1. To proactively support the recovery and long-term resilience of DTAS members 
2. To help DTAS members gain stability, build capacity and future-proof their operations
3. To prevent DTAS members escalating into crisis

The aim is to launch the fund at the DTAS conference in August, with applications opening in early autumn.

DTAS are proposing the fund will make available grants between £10,000 and £100,000.  It will be open to Provisional and Full DTAS members and is expected to remain open for two years.

Find out more from the DTAS website.

The First Minister has set out his Programme for Government for 2025 to 2026.

It will focus on: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency, delivering high quality and sustainable public services.

It includes the legislative programme for the next parliamentary year.

Programme for Government – gov.scot

A new initiative, led by Community Land Scotland in partnership with the Scottish Land Commission, is launching to ensure more people can benefit from the investments being made in natural capital across Scotland.

The project will broker partnerships between local communities, landowners, and nature finance developers.

The Natural Capital Community Partnerships project will help deliver Government expectations that communities are involved in decisions about – and benefit from – Scotland’s land.

Read more at the Community Land Scotland website.

On 25 March, Planning Democracy and the Environmental Rights Centre Scotland (ERCS) hosted a webinar on defending environmental democracy.  The webinar was in response to the current hostility being displayed towards planning and environmental concerns. Against the backdrop of public participation in environmental decision-making being dismissed as NIMBYism, rather than a fundamental pillar of a democratic society, we wanted to bring people together to discuss how we can mobilise in defence of our environmental rights.

Speaking at the webinar were writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch; Laurie McFarlane from Future Economy Scotland; and Malcolm Tait, Professor of Planning at Sheffield University with Dr Kiera Chapman from Oxford University. Malcolm and Kiera run Planning for Nature with Planning Democracy and Scottish Environment LINK as partners. Read on for a summary report and link to the webinar recording.

If you were unable to join the webinar on the day, recording of the webinar on defending environmental democracy is available to watch online.

Context on current challenges in politics, land use and planning

Laurie began outlining the political and economic context and the centrality of land use to addressing 21^st century challenges. He talked about the economics of development and the environmental crisis, and why tackling this requires a strengthened and more democratic planning system. The erosion of the planning system in response to vested interests, and the prioritisation of shareholder interests over the public interest is why creating a more democratic and proactive planning system is critical to building sustainable places that cater to human needs.

Erosion of environmental democracy in English planning reform

Malcolm and Kiera focussed on planning explaining how the state of debate within planning is myopically focused on policy tweaks, interpretation, and process. With the consequence being a reduction inattention on the material outcomes of development. They argued that democratic participation is being squeezed out of planning in favour of technical ‘solutions’ and centralised policy. The so called ‘win-win’ environmental policies are necessarily developed as a means of excluding communities, their concerns for the qualities of individual sites and places.

Democratic participation is now seen as antithetical to a ‘growth agenda’, even though those communities will have to live with the consequences of this growth. The Nature in Planning project will be tackling this problem in more depth.

Lack of local democracy in Scotland

Finally, Lesley gave some shocking statistics about the state of democracy in Scotland and suggested the reasons for the low election turnouts and community disempowerment.  She gave examples of community enterprises elsewhere and in Scotland showing how communities are filling this void.

To hear about future webinars and keep up to date on our work on environmental democracy, subscribe to Planning Democracy’s mailing list and ERCS newsletter.

This Bill was introduced by the Scottish Government on Wednesday 20 March 2025.

What does the Bill do?

Community Wealth Building (CWB) is an approach to economic development that tries to use the power of ‘anchor organisations’ to grow and retain wealth within a local economy.

Anchor organisations can be public, private, or third sector bodies that have a large enough presence in a local area to be able to change economic outcomes. These could include local authorities, the NHS, large private sector employers, universities and enterprise agencies.

Under the CWB approach, these types of organisations might, for example, use their spending power to procure locally, pay the real living wage, or facilitate community ownership of land or assets.

All of Scotland’s local authorities are currently working with their own CWB models. However, these are not always underpinned by formal plans and the extent of implementation varies.

The Scottish Government says the purpose of this Bill is to ensure that CWB is implemented consistently across Scotland as an economic development tool.

The Bill proposes to do three things:

• It would place a duty on the Scottish Ministers to publish a CWB statement which sets out the measures they will take to facilitate CWB.
• It would require local authorities and ‘relevant public bodies’ to publish and implement a CWB plan for their area.
• It would require ‘specified public bodies’ to have due regard to CWB guidance when developing their corporate plans and associated delivery strategies.

Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill – Scottish Parliament – Citizen Space

Aimed at community groups involved in renewable energy and low-carbon projects, this annual survey builds on previous years to provide the most comprehensive view of community energy across Scotland and the UK as a whole. Your input helps highlight sector achievements, strengthens the case for community-led energy and influences government policy and key decision-makers.

SOTS is a collective effort by Community Energy Scotland, Community Energy England, and Ynni Cymunedol Cymru (Community Energy Wales).  A link to the 2025 State of the Sector Portal where you can register for this year’s survey and submit your data is provided below, and previous SOTS reports can viewed here –  Welcome | State of the Sector

In this briefing, Community Land Scotland sets out their proposals for how to improve the Land Reform Bill as well as their reflections on the Stage 1 report from the Net Zero, Energy and Transport (NZET) Committee, including:

• Welcoming the Stage 1 report on the Land Reform Bill from the Committee which highlights significant areas of weakness within the draft legislation and several important ways in which the legislation will not meet its stated policy objectives, as things stand.  The chief concern with the Bill as drafted is that it does not seriously address the question of land ownership diversification in Scotland and offers limited influence on the issue of lesser significance, land use and management.
• Agreeing with the Committee’s conclusion that the principles of the Bill should be supported but that significant amendment is needed for the Bill to deliver the policy outcomes of more diversified ownership and greater transparency over land management and ownership.

Find out more in Community Land Scotland’s briefing.

Financial sustainability is a pressing concern for our sector. Navigating an unpredictable funding landscape has shifted thinking in how we might move towards self-generated income. There is recognition that the need to secure funding can sometimes steer organisations away from their core mission, resulting in less autonomy to respond to community priorities. This tension highlights the importance of financial independence, with some organisations exploring revenue-generating models such as community-owned wind farms.

The emotional well-being of those working in the community sector is tied to addressing urgent social and environmental challenge, which can take its toll. How we sustain ourselves and our teams, from simple but meaningful check-ins at the start and end of meetings to fostering a culture of mutual support is important. Laughter, celebrating small victories and spending time to visit and learn about successful community endeavours are essential to stay hopeful and connected to our practice. Some organisations have introduced more flexible working structures, such as a nine-day fortnight, to promote staff well-being. The value of storytelling is a way to showcase impact and a means of uplifting those doing the work by reminding them of the positive change happening daily in communities.

Environmental sustainability and the difficulties of integrating climate-conscious practices within financially strained organisations can sometimes feel like a competing concern when immediate financial and social needs take precedence. When we reframe the issue in a way that positions sustainability as an affordability issue rather than an additional burden, we help bridge the gap between environmental goals and economic realities. There is a growing interest in exploring renewable energy solutions, such as repowering community-owned wind farms, as a way to build long-term financial and environmental resilience.

Waiting for a broader cultural shift in attitudes toward these and other sorts of sustainability of human life and activity is not an option. Action desperately needs to come from within communities, driven by those already committed to change.

How we work together now to access collaborative funding models, emotional well-being strategies, and practical environmental solutions is also key to how we support sustainable community organisations—it all hinges on shared learning, mutual support, and a commitment to working together toward a more resilient future.