Pedal - Portobello Transition Town

How We Started

In 2005, a group of Portobello residents came together following a successful campaign against a planned superstore that would have devastated our local High Street. We began to look at ways we could reduce our reliance on fossil fuel in Portobello while simultaneously improve the quality of life for us all. We took our inspiration from the work of Rob Hopkins’ students in the Irish town of Kinsale, as they sought to map an ‘energy descent’ route for Kinsale to reduce its dependence on oil. We also took inspiration from the community buy outs on the west coast of Scotland – from Assynt and Eigg – as we sought ways for our community to rebuild its economy and bring local assets into community control and productive use. For this reason we called ourselves Portobello Energy Descent and Land Reform Group (PEDAL for short). As the Transition Town movement began to emerge, we changed our name to PEDAL- Portobello Transition Town

What We Do

PEDAL - Portobello Transition Town is a community organisation that works with local people to help create a vibrant and sustainable Portobello. We believe that to play our part in efforts to combat climate change and to build community resilience, Portobello can and should re-localise. This means providing as many of the services, products and infrastructure we require as locally as possible. For example: growing more of our food; generating our own energy; encouraging less travel and the use of more sustainable travel options; and providing more employment and leisure opportunities in Portobello.

To date, we have:

• held an annual Car Free Day event
• produced and sold the popular ‘Porty Shopper’ jute shopping bag in local shops
• carried out a feasibility study into a multi-purpose community centre
• secured a 25-year lease on land that we are converting into a community orchard
• Increased take up of loft and cavity wall insulation in local households
• Provided bespoke energy advice to residents in tenement blocks
• Facilitated bulk purchase and installation of solar thermal heating in homes
• Conducted a feasibility study into a large scale wind turbine
• Run a successful monthly organic food and crafts market
• developed a ‘virtual orchard’ - enabling planting of fruit trees in people's gardens and public land, now mapped on-line
• Run a programme of re-skilling courses around food growing, food waste low-carbon diets
• promoted a garden share scheme in partnership with Care & repair Edinburgh
• completed a feasibility study into the potential for an urban farm. 

We are also working with Portobello Community Centre to seek transfer of that site into community ownership and develop a new multi-purpose community hub to high environmental standards.

Our Future Plans

We are now working on plans for:

• a number of small community food growing spaces
• promoting locally produced food through social marketing
• a large scale wind turbine
• a community owned bakery

Photo Gallery