Edinburgh park community hub dream moves closer with Colinton building taking shape amid last fundraising push
The eagerly awaited new community hub in an Edinburgh park is starting to take shape, as the local group/ charity behind it makes a final fundraising push.
Volunteers at Colinton Village Enterprise have been busy since their plans to turn the old shed at Spylaw Park into a new community hub were approved by the council in September, 2024.
The local community group hopes to open the £1 million hub by the end of the year, with grants, donations, fundraising and the sale of a local property left by a former member of the charity in her will all going towards the costs.
The new building is set to house multi-purpose rooms to be rented out for community uses, as well as a handy cafe for people using the park or adjacent Water of Leith walkway.
The works on Colinton Village Hub include lifting the roof of the existing building to accommodate a new first floor of accommodation and provide direct access from the walkway.
Building work began in October last year, with groundworks carried out over the winter period and the building now starting to take shape above ground.
While the works continue, the local group say around three quarters of the funding is in place, and are now making a final push to raise the remaining funds needed.
Speaking about how the project is going, Colinton Village Enterprise chairwoman Lorraine O’Shea said: “So far so good. We did incur delays because of huge amounts of bedrock, so the groundworks were challenging.
“We have been off the ground for the last month. It took the winter to get out of the ground and now it’s starting to take shape above ground.
“There should be no more surprises, doing frame and steel work now. We had a site visit yesterday and it’s amazing to see how it has come on.
“The first fix for electrics and cabling is about a month away and by the end of April the roof will start being put up.
“It’s a challenging project given the location of the hub, in a park away from access roads, but we are extremely happy with the builders, Rollo Developments Ltd, they have been great.
“And our architect, David Moore of MDA Studio, has been involved from the very beginning as he is a local resident, so it’s wonderful having him on board. He knows what we want and what the community wants, and he is extremely good at his job.”
A public meeting is set to be held on Wednesday, April 22 at 7pm at Dreghorn Loan Hall, offering an opportunity for locals to hear more about the progress and future plans for the hub, and how to donate to the community project.
Lorraine added: “We are hoping to be open by the end of the year, that’s the target anyway. This is where the public meeting comes in, we need the community’s help to join us in fundraising so we can finish in time with everything we want on offer in the building.
“We will show everyone the photos and plans for the project, but this is also an opportunity for locals to talk to us and give us their feedback.
“The message really is help us finish our project, with ‘our’ being not just us as Colinton Village Enterprise, but us and the community together, as it will be a community hub which everyone here will get benefit from.
“Whether it’s yoga or educational classes, or coming in for a coffee, we really want this to be a multi-purpose space that everyone in the community can visit and get something out of, bringing people together and creating community cohesion.
“So the public meeting is very important. We will have our architect and the owner of the building company there to answer questions and speak more about the project.
“We are around three quarters of the way there for the fundraising, so this is the final push. We are hoping that with the community’s help we can finish this project together by the end of the year.”
Colinton Village Enterprise has launched its first neighbourhood fundraising initiative. Join the final push and help the group celebrate “raising the roof” of the Colinton Village Hub.