Having slept on it, I’m conscious of the enormity of the task ahead and the potential to get it wrong. The Town Hall cannot open as was. Even basic changes to give proper access to the building are not easy to achieve. With no funding, we cannot progress. To secure funding we need a costed, definite design. To get a definite costed design we need community buy-in following a consultation exercise. How do you do that without funding?
We’re going to have to get serious on our list of essential jobs to be costed and the design we want to follow yet who are ‘we’?
Who are we?
‘We’ are the board of the SCIO that doesn’t yet exist but it can’t be just that handful of people. It will include interested partners and helpers but it will be the SCIO trustees who take the decisions.
‘We’ will include a (very) part time Development Manager, contracted perhaps by Portobello Central company or perhaps, more likely by Porty Central SCIO, who can hone our vision and drive it forward but we don’t have them yet.
‘We’ will include funders who need to know we have consulted our community.
‘We’ is definitely the community, so how to bring them on the architectural journey?
‘We’ has to be CEC who are likely to be the owners for a good while yet, as we slowly secure funding to allow any transfer. Not a simple process!
Charging
Meanwhile I’ve have an approach from Porty Community Energy to see if they might get access to the Electric Vehicle charger located in Portobello Town Hall for a trial electric car club vehicle. I’ve passed it to our contact at the Council in the hope it can progress. The existing charger was only used for council vehicles. It does seem to be mad that there is a working EV charge point in the heart of Portobello not being used but taking forward this on paper good idea will have all sorts of access and insurance issues. We’ve brokered the intro, so let’s see what comes of it.
Well explained Jen 👏 👌 👍 We are certainly in our catch 22 stage. That I think we knew would be our main problem. The Everest climb has just got steeper, so we need more ropes and support to haul us up.
Morag