Categories
Gardens

Regeneration of a Dunbar Backland

Regenerating some of the backland’s in Dunbar is part of how The Ridge are trying to breathe life into unused and abandoned areas in town and through doing so, creating a productive and useful community space that supports our training agenda and the building of community assets.

“It will bring an area with so much potential back to life”
Adi Ghirling

The regeneration of the Backland areas is being funded by the Coastal Communities Fund with further support from East Lothian Council and Dunbar Community Council as well as a grant from the Dunbar Common Good Fund. The Ridge is grateful for their support. We want to create a community garden space that provides opportunities for horticultural, hospitality and basic skills training, community growing facilities and a space for holding occasional community markets to draw people into the site and into Dunbar.

The site will also in time provide community garden space that will add to the general public amenity in Dunbar and will provide opportunities for other groups and organisations to benefit from the opportunities and facilities the developed site will provide. The main functional uses of the site are as follows:

  • Community Garden Space
  • Community Growing Space including a polytunnel
  • Training Garden / Training Building
  • Occasional Community Markets

This is an important application and proposal for Dunbar as it is an ambitious attempt to create a beautiful and functional community space that aims to improve existing and underused spaces within the town centre and provide wide ranging community benefit within backland areas that will otherwise continue to decay.
It will bring an area with so much potential back to life and because the site will be under ‘community ownership’, it will give encouragement to Dunbar that community based development can be significant, grounded, good for local businesses and the well-being and opportunities for people in and around Dunbar.

That is the intention and we are keen as always to have people engaged and involved in any work The Ridge carries out to improve Dunbar’s today and tomorrow. Please contact backlands@the-ridge.org.uk for further information or if you fancy getting involved.