Transition Scotland Support Case study series: Number 01 March 2011
Sustaining Dunbar www.sustainingdunbar.org SUSTAINING Dunbar started life three years ago in the summer of 2007, initially as a group of local people talking, discussing and running events and practical activities. After nine months or so it coalesced into an ‘unincorporated association’ with an elected ‘co-ordination group’ and then, after another nine months, metamorphosed again to become a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee. This more formal structure was necessitated when we gained funding from the Climate Challenge Fund and became an employer. Sustaining Dunbar is building on the idea that in any ecosystem the edges are where there the greatest energy and creativity lies, and that a resilient system contains many connected networks. As an organisation, Sustaining Dunbar is attempting to maximise the ‘edge’, as well as building as many local relationships and connections as possible.
got together to purchase a commercial polytunnel which is now owned and used by a dozen or so families, growing food and learning new skills together. Several linked but now independent organisations, such as Dunbar Community Bakery, a community owned cooperative and Dunbar Allotments Association have been brought into being and are progressing their own projects.
a village wind turbine and generate income to invest in becoming carbon neutral... Numerous other ventures are in the planning stages. As well as being a Transition Initiative, Sustaining Dunbar is a member of the Development Trust Association Scotland. It also has close links with East Lothian Council.
Apart from participating in the East Lothian Environment Forum and the council’s Community Engagement A trading subsidiary, Dunbar Working Group, we are The charitable company Community Energy Company, attempting to align our ‘2025 – endeavours to facilitate, enable is being formed to install Energy Descent Action Plan’ and make connections, not community owned renewables project with East Lothian’s to control. Working groups and generate income for future local community planning looking at particular topics community investment. process. have spawned their own projects. The local village of Stenton Philip Revell has been supported to set up Project Coordinator The food group, for instance, their own company to install
MAPPING DUNBAR LOOKING to the future Sustaining Dunbar have done a lot of work on mapping and visioning into the future. They have access to the local Authorities Ordnance Survey mapping, and use a variety of software to produce maps at different scales for all sorts of purposes. Maps can be a very useful way of showing people different parts of their community and community plans in an accessible visual way. It is also a useful tool to engage with as many local people and organisations as possible to arrive at a vision of a low carbon, locally resilient future for any locality.
HOW DO WE DO THAT? IF you decide that Community Mapping and Action Planning tools will help achieve your project aims and objectives then you might decide to seek training for your group. Learning how to facilitate these tools effectively could help if you aim to involve a wide cross section of your local population.
VISIONING 2025 THE ‘2025’ project is the overarching priority at present. Sustaining Dunbar are endeavouring to ensure that their vision is grounded in an awareness of the inevitability of a rapid reduction in our use of fossil fuels. The vision also looks at the need to build local resilience to cope with the challenges ahead, as well as the reality of local resources, knowledge and skills. They are currently putting together the first draft of a vision for 2025 and will be consulting widely on this over the coming months. THAT might be useful in other communities too. Do you have any advice? “My advice for communities thinking about doing mapping, visioning and action plans is “Don’t put your cart before the horse!”
aims and objectives (*those that fit with the resources and time you have available) 2. Once your project aims and objectives are identified then you can design a process to achieve these 3. Once you have designed a process then and only then– you are ready to choose, modify and or invent tools (e.g. Community Mapping and Action Planning)best suited to facilitate your project process 4.Each month come together as a project group to review “how well are we achieving our project objectives” and identify what needs to be done to achieve them better.” Susan Guy, Project Coordination, ‘2025 - Energy Decent Action Plan’ and Community Mapping
1. As a group make sure you identify realistic* project
You can find a range of resources in books and online that could be helpful in researching this topic. In Dunbar, Susan Guy would be happy to help with information about training for project staff and local people in Community Mapping and Action Planning. Contact Sue on: sue@sustainingdunbar.org
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TRAVEL
TRAVEL CONNECTING Dunbar The project is working with local residents and schools to make travel in and around Dunbar more sustainable. Information and individual projects were put in place to answer questions and issues that the local people in the area had with public transport/ sustainable travel and its ease of use. For a while, the local school was involved in teaching pupils about bike maintenance, with the help of ‘Dr Bike’, a local volunteer. The school were very busy and although they were enthusiastic in principle, the scheme was not long term. However, there was a very successful 2nd-hand bike sale through the school in June and they hope to repeat this every 6 months or so. Local transport, walking and bike routes through the town have been mapped to give people information about the different ways they can travel around the local area. This is a major part of their work at the
moment. Using funding from the Climate Challenge Fund 10,000 maps of the area will be published and distributed free to every household. The leaflets will include bus times, and other local transport information. Local bus and train services have been contacted to see if there is any way to make public transport ‘join up’. Connecting Dunbar also promote Trip Share East Lothian to ensure that people have alternatives to short single person car journeys. What’s been difficult? ‘The most challenging thing so far has been collecting bus and train information into a useful format. The information is all out there on websites such as Traveline Scotland, but it is very difficult to collate e.g. comprehensive timetables for local bus stops showing all the buses from all the operators. It is my personal aim to have accurate timetables in all the local bus stops before too long!’ Judy Miller, Connecting Dunbar Project Officer
WHAT’S gone well? ‘We have had a good response to our surveys from lots of local groups and most of the local schools. We have produced a leaflets with bus and train connections to Edinburgh which has been very well received.’
COMMUNITY BAKERY DUNBAR is currently in the process of setting up a community owned and run bakery. This has been funded by offering local people the chance to buy shares in the bakery - which also give them access to cheaper bread. The bakery will be community run and owned.
BIOMASS FEASIBILITY TOOLKIT DUNBAR also has a community energy group who are looking at community renewables, such as biomass fired district heating, for which they have a feasibility toolkit accessible on the website.
KNITTING THE HARBOUR THIS was part of a year long series of events to reconnect people with the local environment and was run by Dunbar Arts Trust. It was precipitated by farmers having to burn of fleece as it had no market value. Local artists, knitters and the public used locally sourced and dyed wool to produce a yarn version of the harbour.
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DUNBAR FOCUS Kind of place: Small coastal town and surrounding rural ward. (Dunbar and East Linton ward of East Lothian Where is it: 30 miles east of Edinburgh where the Firth of Forth becomes the North Sea Involvement with Transition: Official Initiative (registered with Transition Network) Funding: Climate Challenge Funded until March 2011 Where do I find out more? www.sustainingdunbar.org
ENERGY Be Green Energy Project This project helps householders to cut carbon emissions and make their homes more energy efficient. The Be Green team have a drop in energy shop that local people can use for advice. The team also designed a full audit and reporting system for when they visited people’s homes. The first step was to publicise the service locally, so that people are aware of the project. House-holders are offered a free energy audit and report, which gives them an idea of the things they could do to their homes to make them more energy efficient. This is broken down
into the types of energy saving that a home could expect from the measure with an indication of costs that might be associated with each. The report produced is very full, and contains lots of useful information. The project also refers people on to the Energy Assistance Package, and helps people to access grants and loans for energy efficiency measures and cost savings in their homes. What was the biggest challenge? Making people aware of the service and reaching a broad cross-section of the population can be difficult. But the biggest challenge, in terms of the project’s goals, is translating energy advice into measures undertaken and actual savings. Do you have any solutions? ‘The full audit and energy report can be time consuming and there are significant barriers to undertaking many of the measures typically recommended. Until there is the infrastructure in place to make such measures easier, a simple referral to the Energy Assistance Package may be a more effective use of time in many instances.’ Contact Sean Watters on sean@sustainingdunbar.org for more information.
Find a range of useful resources at www.transitionscotland.org