Hub at the centre of ambitious Portgordon plans
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PORTGORDON Community Trust (PCT) has unveiled bold new plans for the next two years as the community begins to emerge from the pandemic.
The fledgling organisation, which had its origins in the former Portgordon Community Harbour Group and now acts as an umbrella organisation pulling together a wide variety of groups in the village, have bold plans which will see them take ownership of the local harbour and create a community hub, among other things.
In order to help drive these forward, PCT has secured funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Crown Estate Scotland to hire a full-time development officer, Michelle Good. Already familiar with various aspects of the project from her previous role with tsiMoray, she is ready to hit the ground running.
She said: "The vision started five years ago with the Planning for Real project in 2017 and what the trust have been doing is picking up from this and re-igniting the embers.
"Despite the lockdown an awful lot has been done over the last two years. One of the first jobs i'll have to do is joining up the dots between what's already been done plus sourcing funding.
"Another major task I'll have is representing the trust regarding the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed with Crown Estate Scotland.
"This basically says that after three years they will transfer the harbour, the land surrounding it – including the community garden – and the the former Richmond Arms, which will become a community hub, over to the community represented by the trust. At the moment, we're leasing the hub building and the land the community garden is on.
"It's a hugely important step and we've got about a year and a half to go before the transfer.
"Getting the hub open and operating and the community behind it in terms of membership of the trust is a priority. One of my roles will be to help and encourage the community to step up and take ownership of all this. Sometimes in small communities people can feel disenfranchised so we need a lot of activity to re-engage with the village.
"We need a bigger percentage of the village to be vocal and directing the trust, be 100 per cent behind it and defining its goals. The trust exists to serve the goals of Portgordon. It's about developing amenities and activities for a wide range of interests and needs."
The community hub is one of the key planks for the trust in the run-up to taking over the wider harbour area, with Ms Good saying that one of the priorities identified by villagers during previous fact-finding surveys was better access to local services and groups.
Through the hub, the aim is to bring as many of those as possible under the one roof.
Developing the hub is set to come in three broad stages.
Ms Good continued: "First of all we'll be using a small portion of the hub with a basic cafe to start off with.
"We hope to evolve this cafe into a working kitchen over time using produce grown in the community garden.
"Also in the first stage, we aim to use the hub to provide public toilets for local people and visitors alike.
"In the next phase, we're looking to create meeting space for a number of different services. This could include offering space for MP, MSP and councillor surgeries.
"Finally, the plan is to turn a portion of the building into a two-bedroom holiday let which would act as another income stream for the trust. A certain portion of the year would be dedicated to providing free respite holidays for people suffering trauma in their lives."
PCT chairman Scott Sliter said Ms Good had a vital role in helping turn the group's vision into a reality in the community.
He said: "The village has a vision but we need to be able to see how to get there and one of Michelle's most important roles will be to help lead us down the path to our vision.
"She has a huge responsibility and a lot of plates to keep spinning as we move forward.
"It's important to remember that the harbour and the wider estate is there for everyone, we have to mesh all these different interests together. There aren't just huge social and economic opportunities here, there're huge health, wellbeing and environmental ones, too.
"We want to make Portgordon an enjoyable experience for everyone."
