The Dudleys Community - Strength in Numbers
Situated in Newhaven, North Edinburgh you’ll find The Dudleys Community Home and Building Improvement Group (‘The Dudleys Community’). Like some others involved in EdinBRIC, the form of the group is as a simple ‘constituted, unincorporated voluntary association’ (see also information from SCVO), formed in the last couple of years and working on improving the lives of the local community in these changing times, especially given the constraints of their historic neighbourhood - the Dudleys Conservation Area. The Dudleys is a group of streets with the same root name, primarily made up of similar terraced Victorian houses, some of which have been subdivided into flats. There are around 300 distinct homes in the area.
The group began with the recognition that a number of locals were interested in installing solar PV, and that their homes were structurally very similar. The ‘Power’ project in Walthamstow was getting publicity at the time and served as some inspiration to consider collective working. Engagement and growth has been through a combination of leaflets, in-person events and the local Facebook group. The community are looking to use their strength in numbers (hosting events, sharing knowledge, sharing lessons learned and particularly the power of group purchasing) as an effective method for bringing about real change in the area.
Members of the group put together a report on the area and the kind of neighbourhood-wide building retrofit and improvement work that could be considered, as a Community Retrofit Programme overview.
Group purchasing includes using professional consultancy advice, in the same way as other EdinBRIC members, working out together how to bring appropriate retrofit using eco-friendly materials to the area to make their historic homes easier and cheaper to heat. Getting the area’s flat roofs properly insulated is a key priority, and is the obvious precursor to then looking at the challenges of solar PV cells, before moving on to double glazing and heat pumps. They also want to improve the awkward government grant and loan funding restrictions for solar PV alone (in the case where a heat pump is infeasible for a property).
The group started consulting with building professionals EALA Impacts CIC (whom they came across by word of mouth) as the initial city-wide group discussions about community retrofit and energy efficiency were developing. Thus they became one of the founder EdinBRIC members. Their local objective has been to encourage the Council to ease planning applications where near identical properties wish to get the same work done (e.g. solar PV installation). The ideal would be a single application covering any of a list of addresses, which hasn’t been achieved (yet!), but now at least a single template application can be used with minimal changes for each suitable property.
The Dudleys Community is keen not only to work with homeowners but also to collaborate with the area’s tenants and landlords who equally face the same difficulties with home insulation and upgrade to greener energy.
In addition to the decarbonisation of homes, the transition to sustainable transport and support for electric vehicles is a key driver to push for change in The Dudleys, with the organisation lobbying the City council for EV charging points locally and even exploring the possibility of in-pavement solutions, given the absence of driveways and garages there.
The group is keen to hear from other Edinburgh and Scottish communities with similar interests and challenges, as well as to connect with other interested people in The Dudleys area.
