How Scottish villagers bought their harbour – and saved their future
This inspirational story is a call to action for many communities in rural England. This Scottish example running into millions of locally raised social finance shows the capacity for rural communities to sieze the initiative. The article concerned tells us:
Coastal towns often face higher levels of inequality, lower wages and higher unemployment than other parts of the UK. The top five areas voting to leave the EU were all coastal communities in Essex, East Anglia and Lincolnshire. Dumfries and Galloway, on the west coast of Scotland, voted to remain but only by a slim margin.
In Portpatrick, a local seaside village, tiers of pastel houses stretch down to a small harbour where boats are moored. The place is so picture-postcard pretty, it’s hard to imagine that the harbour was almost left to rot – and with it, the future of the village – until local residents raised enough money a year ago to buy it.
Calum Currie contacted Community Shares Scotland (CSS) – a scheme funded by the Big Lottery Fund Scotland and Carnegie UK Trust. He hoped Portpatrick Trust might be eligible to become Scotland’s first community benefits society, which would allow it to sell shares in the harbour to secure it into community ownership.
Since 2009, more than 100,000 people have invested £120m of share capital into 400 community businesses across the UK. Dozens more schemes are in the pipeline, funding everything from local pubs to huge renewable energy schemes. Hastings, a deprived coastal town in south-east England, recently used shares to help give residents a stake in its restored historic pier.