Back in May of this year we contacted NHS Lothian to inform them of our intention to submit a ‘community asset transfer’ request so as to protect the future of Belhaven Community Garden by bringing the land into community ownership. Now, this week, we have finally received a draft of the application form that we will need to complete to move this process forward but we are still awaiting details of how NHS Lothian will consider and decide on our application.
In the intervening months we have been busy researching other ‘asset transfer’ applications (both successful and unsuccessful) made by other groups from across Scotland, gathering information and data and developing our vision and future plans so as to ensure that we are able to make as strong a case as possible for community ownership. Not least, we have been collecting evidence of public support through our online survey and paper petition and through letters of support from local organisations and from across the political spectrum.
We have just short of 1500 signatures in support, along with hundreds of comments and ideas from local people that illustrate just how much the community garden is already valued as a green space and how much potential there is for it to become an even more valuable resource for our community’s health and wellbeing once we have ownership and local control. This input is hugely valuable to us.
We now have 24 letters of support from a range of local organisations (including The Ridge, the Dunbar and East Linton Local Area Partnership, Dunbar and West Barns Primary Schools, Dunbar Grammar School, Dunbar, West Barns and Dunpender Community Councils) as well as from Labour, SNP and Conservative MSPs.
Much of whatever funding is required for an eventual community purchase is likely to come from the Scottish Land Fund. Securing such funding is a two stage process. We have recently submitted our ‘stage one’ application which will be considered shortly. This includes a request for a small grant to enable us to pay an external consultant to work with us to develop our business plan as well as contributing towards the costs of a land valuation.