Cosy Homes and Cargo Bikes
Project code: 40
Description
Heating and transport are two areas where community climate action can have the biggest impact.
Currently, 30% of UK Energy use is within our homes and we know there’s significant wastage of energy - particularly through heating. Would you like some support from your community to do some improvements to make your home more energy efficient, more comfortable, and save on heating bills?
Whether you rent or own your home we would like to connect local volunteers with energy and building experts who can demystify the processes involved.
There will be practical workshops available to all. We will create demonstration kits and organise bulk buying of materials and labour to help people make the work as effective and affordable as possible. We believe connecting skilled people with households, offering free resources and supporting people to negotiate the barriers collectively will make significant differences to health, wellbeing and we will see less carbon emissions created through home energy use.
We will support groups of neighbours to come together and begin the process of creating a shared buildings plan. This involves coming to an understanding, through surveys and expert advice, what the route would be to collectively transform existing housing stock into energy efficient homes. We will do this in liaison with EdinBRIC, the city wide retrofit collective.
We will also set up a Cargo Bike Library and Active Travel Hub in the centre of Portobello. We aim to make e-Cargo Cycles accessible to all and you are welcome to borrow one for a ride along the coast or to help you move stuff around. We will look after three cargo cycles, which are especially designed to carry kids, dogs or goods. They will be lent out for day loans, and used by community projects like the Community Fridge. We will offer training to get you started and support riders of all confidence levels. There’s a sturdy trike or sleek 2-wheeler to choose from so something to suit everyone. It’s impossible to ride one without an enormous grin! The Hub will also offer travel advice, routes and bus information. It will support our car-share club and we will set-up local lift-sharing opportunities. Whatever you need to help you reduce the amount of miles you travel by car, we will be there to help.
Location: Portobello, Leith and Meadowbank
Proposed on behalf of: Porty Community Energy are committed to helping the community in and around Portobello reduce our carbon consumption. We are focussed on transport and energy use. We previously organised a Bike Library trial, set up a car club, and ran the Bikefest at Bellfield and the Heat Fair events. Edinburgh Tool Library works like a regular library, but with tools instead of books. It believes in access over excess, and that through sharing resources already in the community, we can all benefit by saving money and reducing our carbon footprint by shunning consumption for sharing. ETL has libraries and workshops in Leith, Meadowbank and Portobello, where members can borrow tools, but also learn how to improve their own living spaces, but also their community, through a range of community builds and outreach work ETL does. They have over 1500 members and have cumulatively saved their members over £1.5million and reduced their C footprint by almost 200 tonnes.
Documents (1)
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Published 2023-06-01
Cosy Homes - All events sold out very quickly and have long waiting lists (up to 60 people!).
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Published 2023-07-01
Creating a shared buildings plan: Brighton and Rosefield. Group has now formed a neighbour's association to collectively progress. This is a great success and case study to replicate and enthuse others.
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Published 2023-12-21
Project update published https://yourvoice.edinburgh.gov.uk/updates
Events in and around Portobello have been great. By bringing in the community they have made the idea of efficient energy use accessible to a 'non converted' audience. We need more of these across the city and this shows the way forward. A great start by the team there and worthy of support!
Thank you so much for your support! We are really happy that you've spotted our drive to reach those 'not-yet-converted' audiences in our area, which is so important to us.
Great idea to help people save money and reduce their carbon footprint. Would love to try a cargo bike out some time too!
Thanks so much for the support. Very keen to lend you a cargo bike soon, let's make that happen!
What a great initiative, hope the funding application is successful. Communities need projects like these!
A great initiative!
This is such a wonderful community-led initiative. We had such a wonderful time using your cargo bike last year with our 4 and 6 year olds sitting in front of the cargo bike. Its such a fond memory. I hope this get funded and we hope you bring this initiative to central edinburgh as well!
Brilliant initiative for Portobello and beyond! Really enjoyed the bikefest last summer and would love to to see a return of it this year ...and more than happy to bring my cargo trike again for people to try! 😊