Community Planning

Day one of a two-day community planning event in Portobello Town Hall. After the council admitted they hadn't done a good job of consulting the local community before proposing to sell off the football pitches at Westbank, Action Porty got some funds to organise a community planning event. Local people were encouraged to come along and share their ideas for the site, while three teams of volunteer planners worked on three outline plans - one focussed on housing, one focussed on leisure and one in between. all three designs will still include some housing provision, as a compromise with the council's avowed intention of getting a capital receipt from the site but there is also a strong sense that the local community is completed opposed to any diminution of the leisure facilities on the site. A view which remains as strong as ever from looking at the feedback around the room. Is it possible to challenge the model that is focussed on the one-off capital receipts from selling council assets and instead look for long-term ways to generate income for the local community? A fun day of photography, rounded off with a meal in The Skylark with the rest of the team - organisers and planners.

And this also fits the 'women at work' theme as the woman pointing at the suggestions on the board is one of our local councillors and therefore her attendance at the event was not just as a local resident but also in her job as councillor.