We are delighted to have just received confirmation that our application for ‘Stage One’ funding from the Scottish Land Fund has been successful. This is great news as it puts us in the pipeline to be able to apply for ‘Stage Two’ funding towards the costs of purchasing the garden. More immediately, it enables us to engage consultants to help us with preparing our ‘community asset transfer’ application to NHS Lothian and with building the strongest case possible for bringing Belhaven Community Garden into community ownership.
We will also be using some of the funding to obtain our own site valuation of the garden. This site valuation is a key factor that will determine our ability to purchase the land. Currently, the land is designated as a ‘windfall housing’ site in East Lothian Council’s ‘Local Development Plan’, NHS Lothian having obtained outline planning permission for housing on the site in 2002. On the back of this, NHS Lothian has just had the land valued at £905,000, way beyond the amount that we will be able to offer.
We are about to apply to East Lothian Council for the designation of Belhaven Community Garden to be changed in the next Local Development Plan that is currently in preparation. Guidance from the Scottish Government states that ‘sites should not be rolled forward from one plan to the next’ and we believe that there is a very strong case for Belhaven Community Garden to be designated instead as a site for community growing, for biodiversity and for health and wellbeing. Such a re-designation is supported by the Dunbar and West Barns Local Place Plan that is in the final stages of being registered as well as by all Scottish Government and East Lothian Council policies along with NHS Lothian’s own greenspace strategy and, of course, by the level of support we have received from across our community, as well as from our MSPs.