Our series of workshops looking at next steps for the 4 community priorities drawn from the East Lammermuir Local Place Plan, are well underway! The first workshop was held on 9th October and focused on Energy Efficiency. The facilitator (Energy Saving Trust) is now working on the report from this, which will guide the spend of community benefits and other means to implement this priority.
Active Travel workshop – Wednesday 19th November
The second workshop will be all about Active Travel (walking, cycling, horse riding etc) and will focus on the community priority:
“A useable, effective Active Travel Network of segregated paths should be planned, designed and built – to include at least one safe crossing over or under the A1 and mainline railway towards the coast and Dunbar.”
The session will be facilitated by Walking Scotland (formerly known as “Paths for All”) and will bring together energy developers, transmission owners, community members, East Lothian Council and representatives of key local groups and organisations working in active travel in the area, such as Walk, Wheel Cycle Trust (formerly known as Sustrans). If you live in the area and are hearing about this for the first time and are interested in attending please contact beth@elep.scot.
Biodiversity and Community Transport workshops
East Lothian Climate Hub will be facilitating the biodiversity workshop and they are liaising with the East Lammermuir Biodiversity Community Liaison Group to shape this. The date will be confirmed soon, but will likely be early December. Please get in touch if you would like to take part. East Lammermuir Community Council have become a member of Community Transport Association Scotland and we are working with them to develop a workshop around mid-January. If the issues with public transport are important to you and you would like to get involved in shaping this workshop please get in touch with beth@elep.scot
Background
These workshops are part of a mapping and gapping exercise to determine what pieces of the puzzle we have for taking forward the four community priorities and where the gaps are, to inform the next steps.
They are funded by SPEN (the Transmission Owner) out of their capacity building budget to prepare the way for the spend of community benefits from the Eastern Green Link 1 (EGL1) project and have been developed in collaboration with East Lammermuir Community Council and myself, the Energy Projects Partnership Manager.
The resulting reports will guide the spend of SPEN / EGL1 community benefits funding, but are not limited to this fund and will also inform the spend of other community benefits available to the East Lammermuir community, attract match funding and inform in-kind work from energy developers and transmission owners.
We are excited to be supported by East Lothian Climate Hub throughout the process too! They will be producing a fifth report pulling together common themes and synergies from the four workshops. Check out their news post about their support here.
If you have any questions please get in touch.