Plans submitted for new Edinburgh 'microhub' building to serve the community of Wester Hailes
Plans have been submitted for a new Edinburgh microhub building to serve the community of Wester Hailes.
Wester Hailes Growing (WHC) has applied to the City of Edinburgh Council for permission to build a new microhub at land 15 meters west of 17 Murrayburn Gardens.
This proposal is part of a wider project to build a full Greenway Community Hub in the area. While funding isn’t yet in place for the full hub, the community group has now submitted plans to deliver a smaller hub in the meantime.
WHC appointed Calum Duncan Architects LTD to carry out an architectural feasibility study that would investigate a new community hub to the north of the Greenway and adjacent to the existing community garden in Wester Hailes.
This new facility would serve the neighbourhoods of Murrayburn, Hailesland, and Dumbryden, with the detailed use of the facility being guided by the outcomes of the consultation process carried out by Community Enterprise and Calum Duncan Architects.
Following the development of this Community Hub to RIBA Stage 2 design and the challenges of achieving full funding for the project, the client wished to develop the workshop element of the site as a phase 1 of the project, with the potential for this element to function as a Microhub in the intervening period until the whole project is realised.
This new single-storey one-room community space will have the flexibility to accommodate multiple users of varying ages with a focus on the needs of early years and younger age groups.
Highlighting the need for such a space in the local area, Wester Hailes Growing Communities chief executive Greig Robertson said: “The Greenway Microhub will be an incredible resource for the local community, which currently has no place to gather for community activities.
“Though only one room, the microhub will provide a place for community meals and workshops. It will be available for the local community to rent for birthdays and other events. It will be well used."
Acting as a flexible space for community group activities and meetings and as a community café operating on an intermittent basis, this proposed microhub space can function as a ‘base’ for groups which are focused on outdoor activities, but presently have nowhere to begin and finish, or use as an indoor space where the activity and weather require this.
This community space will include a reception area and a workshop space for youth training. Equipment will be cleared and stored when not functioning as a workshop. With the provision of catering in the form of a small tea prep to cater for groups using the space also planned.
In the planning documents, the applicant added: “The site is currently absent of character, function and any particular use. It only serves as a relatively exposed and unwelcoming open space which locals can be seen to negotiate in order to walk between services, housing or greenspaces.
“By carefully consulting with the local community's needs, we have understood and interpreted these needs to design an efficient and functional use, which we strongly believe will add an important facility and resource for a focus on the local neighbourhoods, which are severely lacking at present.
“The architectural design approach is intended to be both practical and characterful, introducing a new active frontage to this space and making an enjoyable contribution to its context.”
The council’s planning department will now consider whether to approve or reject this application, which has so far received no comments on the local authority’s online planning portal.