GO Torry – growing resilience one year after peoples’ assembly – Scottish Communities Climate Action Network & Transition Scotland Hub

Listen to 1000 Better Stories on your favourite podcast app or here.

Our Story Weaver, Kaska, revisits Torry in Aberdeen for a Go Torry event, celebrating community’s growing resilience in the wake of People’s Assembly and its Declaration last Spring. We hear of RAAC and retrofit, outdoor classrooms and stealthy resistance, poetry and community with a heart.

Credits

Interview, recording and sound production: Kaska Hempel.

Transcript

Introduction

Kaska Hempel: Hello, it’s Kaska, your Story Weaver. Last year, I visited Torry in Aberdeen to witness Torry People’s Assembly held over a May weekend at St Fittick’s Park. The Assembly was a part of the wider Just Transition Communities project, coordinated by Nescan Hub across the region, focusing on deliberative approaches to local climate action. It brought the community together to discuss how they could stop Energy Transition Zone, or ETZ, from taking over their precious green space at the park, how they could tackle other serious challenges facing them, as well as ways of injecting energy into positive local Community Projects.

1000 Better Stories episode linked in the show notes gives you a taste of the Assembly Day itself and covers basics of the innovative People’s Assembly approach used to facilitate this community’s deliberations. So I was very excited to visit Torry again this year for the Go Torry event on the 15th of June, celebrating all that’s been achieved since the Assembly gathering.

Today I take you on a journey through the day, so that you can soak in the energy and hear from Torry residents and Assembly supporters about their work.

And we’re off. Just boarded the train to Aberdeen. There’s my bike…

Right, I thought I’d look up the Declaration of Torry, which is a document that was created after the Assembly to sort of collect the ideas that emerged from the two days. And one big overarching thing they stated they mustn’t sacrifice is our health and well being.

And to that end, we will do everything to stop the land grab, protect our park and green spaces. Through legal and if needed, direct action as we continue to value, enhance and expand them.

We’ll continue to use our park and increase its already immeasurable value by organising more events and activities in it, which support community health, educate our children, enrich all our lives and help us connect with and care for our land.

We demand the incinerator be decommissioned in line with the Scottish Government’s 2022 moratorium and we insist the Council focuses on reducing waste, recycling and renewables.

We will seek support to set up a Torry retrofit project to insulate homes, reduce bills and emissions, improve health and provide meaningful long term work here.

And number five is we insist on a just and fair energy transition, not ETZs, obscure and unfair land grab.

And number six is we will strengthen collaboration within our community and with others in Scotland and beyond to collectively transform the system, driving the social, political and climate crisis.

Pretty ambitious, but also very specific and focused ideas. So today we’ll see where these guys are at in progressing against these actions.

End introduction

Kaska Hempel: So you’re serving breakfast today?

Olga Bloemen: Yeah, this is the start of the Go Torry day. We’re offering free breakfast, and even like, scrambled eggs, and cooked mushrooms made on order.

Kaska Hempel: I should have caught an earlier train.

Olga Bloemen: Yeah, there’s been quite a few families coming in, and then there’s also some like, writing prompts and collaging things that people can do, inspired by yeah, questions around Torry, and their experience of Torry.

Scott Herrett: ….In The Bridge Centre. There’s a session there ongoing about retrofit buildings.

Kaska Hempel: Hi Scott, I’m Kaska….

Scott Herrett: My name is Scott Herrett. I live in Torry. I also work for Friends Of The Earth Scotland as a community organiser around a just transition for Aberdeen and the North East.

So today I’m part of a workshop where we’re gathering in, essentially, stories from people who live in Torry and people outside of Torry what they think of Torry. And what that’s for is that I’m working with a playwright called Ima Morris. And we’re looking to produce a play about Torry. The working title is A Play for Torry. So the idea is to sort of tell an inspiring and celebratory story of Torry. As well as telling the stories of the past, present and possibly sort of future stories.

So a lot of my work is supporting the Friends of St Fittick’s Park. And so that campaign is about protecting the one accessible green space in Torry from industrial development. And so in a way the play is about telling that story, but it’s also telling essentially the historical like context to that story in terms of past injustices, what’s happened in Torry where the land of the community has actually been grabbed and turned into industry, which is really only benefiting a few people where the actual community have not necessarily seen that much benefit from what’s gone on.

But also the idea is actually it doesn’t have to be like that and so hopefully it will inspire people to actually improve the community.

Kaska Hempel: If you could tell me a little bit about this venue and why it’s important to the community.

Scott Herrett: So we’re in the East Tullos Community Centre and this is sort of pretty much in the heart of Torry. The actual community centre shares the same building as Tullos Primary School.

We’ve got a swimming pool to the right. We’ve got the, sort of, Tullos playing field. And then beyond that you’ve got St Fittick’s Park to east. So just beyond that is what is potentially going to be industrialised. Behind us we’ve actually got the waste incinerator which got built and switched on earlier this year.

And then behind that we’ve got the industrial estate. So you look out that window and it’s nice and green and it looks really nice and it is. But then literally just behind us we’ve got this massive incinerator and also a highly polluting industrial estate. This whole place used to be called the Cheerful Vale or the Vale of Cheerfulness.

So if you can imagine when the houses weren’t industrial estate here, it’s like a natural glen essentially. And then that runs out to the Bay of Nigg, which was essentially Torry’s beach. But that got, I say, destroyed for an industrial harbour, again that got completed a couple of years ago, so that would have just ran out to like a really nice beach.

I guess that’s partly why the sort of green space is so important because it’s what we’ve got left and that’s why a lot of people are fighting to protect it. What part of today is about learning what people’s perceptions are of Torry, whether you live here or you don’t. And then also maybe thinking whether they’re actually correct.

And I mean, I’ve lived in Torry three years now, and I know before I moved here, it had this reputation that it was a place that was unsafe, lots of crime, lots of drugs and all this sort of thing, but like my own experience of the community is actually it’s my favourite place I’ve lived in. I’ve lived in Aberdeen eight years and I’ve lived in two or three different locations and it’s by far the best place I’ve lived in Aberdeen and partly that is to do with the location being it quite next to the sea but also essentially the people like there’s definitely, you have a lot more conversations with people in the street and there’s definitely a stronger sense of community and identity.

And I think that’s what we’re all looking for really and I found it here in Torry.

Kaska Hempel: Now, it’s been, has it been a year since the Torry Assembly?

Scott Herrett: Yes, I think it was May last year, yeah.

Kaska Hempel: So, looking back on that year, what do you think the effect of the Assembly itself has been on the community or on yourself or on both?

Scott Herrett: I think, yeah, I mean it’s always hard to know what the effect is but I think the legacy of it is that it’s brought people together. Who, like, carried on essentially the work of the Assembly, which is about trying to get people from across the community to work out how we can improve the community.

And so that’s sort of been rumbling on. And I guess the main thing which came out of the Assembly was that network, but also the retrofit project, which is still in very early stages. And I would say it’s still quite delicate in terms of it’s relied on just a few people as always, but that is still going and I think people are quite energised by that because people can see where it could potentially go.

And it’s extremely ambitious. That’s the sort of ambition we need when we’re thinking about what we need to do in terms of responding to the climate crisis and what it means for our actual communities and where people live and so for me that it’s really quite effective because it actually brings the climate crisis to actually rather than it be this thing which is really scary and it’s really like bad which obviously it is it actually brings it to where people live and it shows we can make houses warmer, affordable, drier, and that’s proven to actually improve health and lots of other things.

So yeah, so that’s quite exciting.

Priya Spencer: My name is Priya. I represent Aberdeen Ethnic Minority Women’s Group. I’m the founder and the managing Director for the group. We have around 72 members just now and around from 33 nationalities. Today in Torry we’re trying to connect with a lot of our women minorities in Torry and we found some few new members.

And excited about it. Excited about our future events in Torry. We are coming up with a swap shop, a reuse refuse event where we can upcycle our clothes. So that’s something we are keen to do with the community. And you know, it’s sustainable. Today’s event is just to connect with everyone here and also to promote buying minority women made to support minority women of Aberdeen.

So, think local. Think sustainable, think fun, and think, you know, think communities like Torry, Woodside, Tilly Drone, all these areas. They need a lot of help. But also not just those areas, but also the whole of Aberdeen. We have quite a lot of people around Aberdeen who are minorities who are struggling, and they need the help too.

Participant: ….Our Torry where the sea meets the sky. The North Sea sings a timeless song….

Marcelina: My name is Marcelina. I’m a student. So, I’ve seen lots of beautiful human in there. I mean, whatever people have of Torry, any bad inscription, I think this is far wrong from what I just saw now. Torry’s beautiful. It’s just, it needs a good reputation, and I believe that everybody needs to be seen and heard, no matter what.

Priya Spencer:… Shall we do our usual selfie? We always do our selfie when all of us are behind. We have to see it together.

Organiser: To say another massive thank you for everyone, for your creative contribution, for being brave and standing up for all of it. And we’re gonna collate all this together, and then we’re gonna print loads of copies.

Kaska Hempel: I saw you start the workshop. It’s going to be around the film.

Lucy Stroud: Well our film team are, but I’m just going to do this reel workshop….

My name’s Lucy Stroud, I’m the Communications Officer at Station House Media Unit. A charity that’s been based in Woodside for over 20 years. It really empowers people from disadvantaged communities, the seven priority areas in Aberdeen, to have a voice and to tell their story on their own terms.

And we do that through TV, film, radio, podcast, press. So it’s all about working with communities to have a voice and to share that and often challenge dominant mainstream media messaging. Which is often quite negative towards people that are experiencing hardship. Often blaming the victim rather than actually supporting them, yes.

We do a number of campaigns every year. We’ve whittled it down to three around key areas that people that come to SHMU are worried about. So the first one is Challenge Poverty, so Challenge Poverty Week in October. We do a big campaign around that. We do a big campaign in May for Mental Health Awareness Week and we support NESCAN’s Climate Week North East.

That’s an area that we’re really passionate about. Being more sustainable in our own practices and organisation but also working with the community members to see what their concerns are surrounding climate change. Often it’s not at the top of their agendas and that is completely understandable but actually the people that are most vulnerable are actually going to be most impacted by the effects of climate change.

So it’s really important. That, you know, we can work together to try and raise awareness to how that might impact these vulnerable communities.

Organiser: …We’ll start kind of like packing up…

Kaska Hempel: I left Lucy to her reels workshop with budding social media videographers and cycled along to the next event at The Bridge Community Centre Café.

…Just heading into The Bridge Centre.

It looks like a nice little building. Next to a tiny little green space there. Lots of raised beds and some pots of flowers. Pansies. And lovely little tablecloths for the table. But, going in.

Matthew Clubb: As you do that, not only do you use less energy, you get warmer. Look at that, up at 20 degrees, with less energy. That’s the power of good insulation and airtightness….

Lynn Restrup: My name is Lynn Restrup. I’ve lived in Torry for about 50 years. Three generations who live in Torry. My mum lives in Torry, my oldest son lives in Torry, and I do, obviously, as well.

The Bridge Centre, which unfortunately not everybody in Torry knows about, is an incredibly welcoming space. It’s a community cafe. It’s run by King’s Church. They’re looking to take over the building. We’re located right next to the Golden Tea Pub on North Balnegask Road. The cafe is normally open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Good healthy food at, you know, affordable costs. Most of the staff are volunteers and have lots of time to chat. So we have a lot of older relatives and some of the relatives from the nearby nursing home come over and see it as a safe space to be able to get out and just relax and have a cup of tea and a chat.

So that’s really a great thing. They’re opening today, especially for us. So we’re having free refreshments. We’ve also invited the RAAC affected households, which is a big issue in Torry, to have a space here to meet with other people in the community. And also the group from the community retrofit plan which is something that was developed before the RAAC. The issue became known, but we’re really hoping that it gives us an opportunity to open up a dialogue with the council about an alternative for these properties rather than just being demolished.

Kaska Hempel: Can you explain for those people who don’t know about RAAC, what RAAC means and what the problem is?

Lynn Restrup: So RAAC is a type of concrete which was put into a lot of houses about 30 to 40 years ago, maybe more. The reason it was done at the time was it’s a lighter weight alternative to normal concrete, so it was more cost effective to build the houses quickly and cheaply then. It was put in the roof, so if the roofs were lighter, then you didn’t need the same strength in the walls and you didn’t need such big foundations.

So it solved a real housing problem that we had at that time. It was a good thing at the point, but now unfortunately it had a built in life span and we’ve now exceeded that. So the concrete is breaking down, there’s gaps appearing and council commissioned a report that said there was this type of concrete in 500 buildings in Torry and the prognosis was very bad and people should move out of them straight away.

Kaska Hempel: It’s been a year since the Assembly. And we talked then. So, what’s been the effect of the Assembly itself on the community, or on yourself specifically?

Lynn Restrup: I think it gave the community a voice, which traditionally hasn’t had a very great voice and that’s why the council has put a lot of things here that maybe they wouldn’t do in other parts of the city that maybe people felt more confident about voicing their objections.

So specifically what came out of the Torry People’s Assembly was continuing meetings with the group which was some people out with Torry and some people within Torry when anybody who’s an ally to Torry can come along to our meetings. We’re not exclusive for Torry residents. In fact, some of our strongest supporters don’t actually live in Torry, but they see Torry community as really an marginalised community that does need a bit of a leg up.

And we’re very grateful for people who feel that way. A couple of the specific things that came out of the Assembly was the need for better communication, which was where the idea for the community website came about. And then we found out that SHMU Radio had funding to do this, so it seemed like a perfect marriage with us and them.

So that’s quite a long way down the line. So SHMU Radio are speaking to people today to get some more ideas about what people would like to see on the website. The other major problem that was identified out of the Torry People’s Assembly was the state of the housing in Torry. And this was before we even knew about the RAAC.

This was about the lack of maintenance, the houses that are damp, and generally just the upkeep of the building. Because unfortunately a lot of the houses that have RAAC actually had damp before, so even if you whip the roofs off, that’s not going to solve all the problems, which is where the retrofit comes in.

Kaska Hempel: Personally, your focus has been on which part of the work?

Lynn Restrup: Most of my role, I see, is sort of building relationships within different groups in Torry. There’s a lot of different groups that are in Torry, or people who other organisations who want to work with the people in Torry. And it’s just a case of sort of introducing them to each other.

For example, Bridge Centre, where we are today, you know, they were desperate to get involved in the community and we were really keen for them to be involved. So it’s just a case of working out how that can happen. And that’s all about just getting to know individuals, building those relationships so you can phone somebody or email somebody and say, we want to do something absolutely crazy, can you help us?

I’d say that the Torry People’s Assembly is an umbrella organisation. It exists to link other groups together. So if you live in Torry, you’ve got an idea about something that you want to do, about community gardening or, you know, organising walks, or doing anything really. Child activities, health activities, just get in touch with us.

You know, we’re here to try and facilitate those connections that, you know, we could put you maybe in touch with somebody else who’s interested in something similar. So, you’re not on your own, whatever ideas you’ve got for improving community, other people will have similar ideas. And together, we’re going to make it work.

We struggle to get some of the newer residents in Torry involved. We’d really love to, you know, hear their voice. I liken it to a train. That sounds really silly, but sometimes If you waited until everybody got on the train to leave the station, you’d never leave. Sometimes you just have to leave the station on the train, and then people will join at different stops along the way, and then you’ll end up at the right destination, just not the way you maybe planned it. You’ve just got to let it happen….

Amy Bruce: It’s been loads of kids around, everyone seems to be enjoying it, lots of information especially.

I’m Amy Bruce, I’m the secretary of the Torry Community RAAC Campaign Group, who are basically just fighting for what we deserve in terms of our RAAC affected properties.

So we just came to raise awareness of that today. We were more here interested in the Retrofit project, and the impact that could potentially have on our RAAC affected properties. But there’s quite a few people who hear an interest in that and listening to it and hopefully the word will spread and we can take that further. I’m a homeowner. So I bought my house two and a half years ago and got the letter through in February to say my property is affected by RAAC so we’re just awaiting the outcome of the council’s consultations and investigations to see what they’re suggesting and what they’re going to do going forward.

We need to come to some sort of solution so that we can feel safe in our homes again. There were so many people affected and Torry is still a community and we just felt that coming together as a community was the best way to ensure that we get what is right for us.

The community that we’ve got is just fantastic. If you’re in Torry, you’re in Torry. Like everyone knows everyone and yeah. I moved here when I was so I’ve been here 17 and a half years now. For the majority of that time, a lot of my family were here. But slowly again, that’s beginning to change because my auntie was in a council Rakafekt property and her new property is not in Torry.

So, slowly that is changing. I think that is going to have an impact on Torry. I actually wasn’t part of really any of the Torry events up until quite recently. I wasn’t aware of a lot of the things that went on in Torry, so it’s actually been quite interesting recently to find out. We’ve since been to one of the Torry Assembly meetings and they’re kind of supporting us in the background with parts of our campaign too.

Kaska Hempel: ….Are you coming in for the presentation? …

Fiona McIntyre: Welcome to Go Torry. This is a big community event that is celebrating lots of community initiatives that have been happening over the last year, but, you know, have been happening over the many years in Torry, and really trying to initiate positive projects. For the community that are empowering and making change and just getting stuff done.

And today we’ve got this conversation which I’ll introduce. But we’re also celebrating the opening of an outdoor classroom in St Fittick’s Park. You can be there at 2 and get a sandwich and then at 2.15 we’ll be celebrating the opening of the outdoor classroom.

What we’re here for today is to talk about something that is really, potentially, and is hugely exciting for the community. This is a project about retrofitting and making Torry toasty and cosy. Sorry Matt! And taking initiative to be the change for Torry and the change that Torry needs. So, I’m going to let Matt introduce what retrofit is, how it could potentially work for Torry.

Matthew Clubb: Hello, yeah for those who don’t know me, I’m Matthew Clubb. I run an architecture and retrofit business here in Aberdeen. We have an office on Union Street. I’ve been working with the Torry Assembly to talk about the potential of retrofit in Torry, which is fundamentally about how we have better housing.

So, I’m just going to basically talk about the retrofit project as a whole. I’m going to just explain what is retrofit, why retrofit, what we’ve been doing and what are the next steps. Okay, so fundamentally the retrofit project is about the future. It’s thinking about, you know, what will Torry look like in 2045 or even 2035?

What’s housing going to look like in the context of fuel poverty, in the context of the transition, in the context of the cost of living, and in the context of the climate crisis? So, as much as this is talking about insulation and improving our homes, for me it’s also about the spaces between buildings.

And that’s what talks to the wider community engagement, because the opportunities for me here are not just that we have cheaper bills, but that we live in better homes, that are fit for the future, that actually create local jobs, create local prosperity. In a way that enhances the community. So, the Torry retrofit project at the moment we’ve set it out in four kind of phases.

And at the moment we’re just at the start of it. So, we’re trying to engage with the community as much as possible. I do a lot of presentations like this. I actually run a community group in my own village in Davit where I do a lot of similar things. We’re trying to do some sample retrofit plans, so on the table over here today, you’ll see some sample retrofit plans that I’m going to talk through.

We’re trying to look at the opportunities, if there are any, with the RAAC situation, you know, are there any ways that what we’re doing could help the RAAC situation? We’re also looking at health, so some of the homes that we’ve been surveying in Torry, we’re actually going to monitor things like air quality and temperate, living temperatures and things like that, because there’s actually huge health implications for improving our housing.

And the final one I’ve got there is about stakeholder outreach, so we’re trying to engage with the council, we’re trying to engage with other community groups. Also, we’re trying to engage with energy companies and financial institutions, because we, you know, this is a big challenge and it needs lots of input from lots of stakeholders.

Phase one, we’re just sort of almost coming to the end of it, sorry, phase zero. Phase one would be going a bit wider. So, at the moment, we’ve done three retrofit plans for three different types of houses, but there’s lots more different types of housing in Torry. And we need to think about how, you know, if we were to improve all the housing on a kind of street by street basis, we’d need a design for doing that.

So that would also look much more at the sort of finance side of things and how we build financial models for all this. Then phase two would actually be doing something, running a pilot project. And for me, this is about taking a street and saying, right, let’s improve all the houses on this street.

And let’s think about the spaces between the buildings as well. And then we do that project, and make sure it’s done right, learn as much as possible, such that eventually we can have a street by street rollout of all the other streets in Torry. So that’s the general kind of what we’re trying to work towards and what we’re trying to get funding for.

But the big question is like, why are we doing this? And for me, there’s just a huge opportunity in this. First of all, it’s about the health benefits. You know, my team go into homes across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire all the time, and we’re seeing dampened mould in people’s homes, and just a lot of bad indoor air quality, a lot of people, you know, they’ve got a whacking great gas boiler or oil boiler in their home, but they still just actually struggle to heat their homes, you know, particularly the old granite homes.

So, you know, all of this takes its toll. A report last year from a building research establishment showed that something like 40 percent of the costs of our NHS, running our NHS, can be attributed to the state of our buildings. 40%. Now, I’ve done a bit wrong. It’s not all about energy efficiency. I think the top figure is actually about trips and falls.

But there is a huge amount that can be done to our housing to reduce the burden on our NHS. And last year, for the first time, a death certificate for a young lad in England was registered. The cause of death being black mold, because a lot of people are just, you know, tolerating these conditions and it’s very bad for your respiratory health, among other things.

So yeah, the health benefits of better housing is phenomenal. Jobs is the next one, you know. The just transition, we’re all hearing that phrase at the moment. And, of course, you know, the oil and gas industry is talking about, you know, being careful and all this stuff. But, for me, you know, if we are going to meet our climate objectives and we’re going to meet the Scottish Government’s heat in buildings strategy, that piece and building strategy requires every home in Aberdeen to have an EPC of C In 10 years time. That’s 200 houses every week that we need to retrofit.

Starting now. 200 houses every week. We need an army of people. That’s 4,000 jobs if we want to. You know, realistically in Aberdeen, the oil industry only really sort of supports 10,000 direct jobs. So, you know, for me that’s a huge opportunity working in our local communities. Fuel Poverty.

The Energy Savings Trust, I don’t know if anyone’s heard of the Energy Savings Trust, they were set up by the government 30 years ago, and they provide grants and loans, but the Energy Savings Trust has been around all that time, and actually, fuel poverty has only gone up in this country.

Especially with the recent price crisis in energy, 30 percent of Scotland is thought to be in fuel poverty now where people are spending more than 10 percent of their household income on their energy bills. So, you know, for me, street by street retrofit is gonna solve that.

And then we’ve got other things, other bigger picture of things. The Climate Change Act of Scotland, you know, requires us to be reaching net zero by 2045, and halving our emissions by 2030. You know, there’s a lot of politics going on about, you know, whether that’s achievable or not. But you know, we’ve got to do it.

And climate change isn’t just about reducing emissions. It’s also thinking about how the changing climate in the future is going to affect us. So, getting ready for adapting to other things like hotter summers, drier summers. So, overheating in buildings will become more of a risk. And so, the main thing I really want to get across here is that the government is, you know, set itself lots of really stringent objectives to meet climate change targets.

And they’re putting money towards it. They’re not putting enough money towards it yet, but they should be, and hopefully they will be. And that, you know, this is all part of trying to address that as well. And the final point I’ve got on this slide here is about the national grid, right? So, it’s decarbonising, it’s largely about electrifying everything.

So electric cars, electric buses, electric homes. But the National Grid have told us that if we’re going to electrify everything, we need to have some efficiency on the way because otherwise we’ll need three times as many wind turbines and so on. So, you know, if we can reduce the energy use in our homes, then we should be doing that.

So, another big case for why we should be retrofitting our homes and improving our homes is that we can’t build ourselves out of this situation. So, this graph shows the emissions from building a house, and then at the end of its life demolishing it. So, you can see that if we build a new house in the short term, we create this huge spike in emissions.

Which actually accounts for 60 percent of the emissions of that building over its whole life. So, you know, we can’t just demolish all the existing houses and build new, because we’ll blow our carbon budget right away. So, if we think forward to 2050, 2045, you know, even with all the house building we need to do, 80 percent of the homes that will exist in 2050 have already been built.

So, we’ve got to upgrade our existing homes. But the other one, you know, if you’re thinking about it in Torry, you know, we’ve got 500 homes that are affected by RAAC. If we cannot, all these things I’ve been talking about are all reasons why we should not be demolishing those houses.

But actually, what about the social impacts of all this? We’re already seeing some of the RAAC houses being boarded up. You know, how does that make you feel when you walk down the street? What are we doing to our community if we’re going to lose 10 percent of our community? So, you know, there’s a huge social impact here that we need to consider as well.

So how do we do it? How do we do retrofit? …

Kaska Hempel: You can listen to the full version of Matt’s retrofit talk in a bonus 1000 Better Stories episode due out next week. Now it’s time to head for the final Go Torry destination, St Fittick’s Park.

….So, I’m getting closer to the tent near the outdoor classroom in St Fittick’s Park. Lots of kids around. Basketball, well, maybe it’s football on the basketball court. They’re planting, oh my goodness, there’s like, tree planting, it’s amazing….

Nathaniel: We’re currently standing in St Fittick’s Park, it is one of the last remaining public green spaces in this side of Aberdeen. To get anywhere else and see any other green space you have to travel 20 miles south down the road or you go across the bridges.

There’s a geographical disconnect between us and the rest of Aberdeen. That makes it obviously important from social and health terms because being a public park there’s no charge to access it and it means anyone from the area can just pop on down. They can bring their dogs, they can have their kids, there’s a playground nearby, some kids playing football, I think, right now.

And we have just got built this new outdoor classroom space, so we can use it as a meeting point. We’re very close to the coast, so you can actually walk nearby and actually get a view of the sea. And there is that aspect of it really in the heart of the community. It’s a space that for many years has been somewhat neglected in that front.

But I think that now is the time to really make people aware that we can use this space. I like it, especially down by the marsh. It’s the prettiest bit. I see heron there. I don’t see them anywhere else. They’re just there. For me, it’s a really good place to come down and just walk around and being, like, you’re in nature but you can kind of be as included as you want because there’s so much space.

I am Nathaniel, I represent Friends of St Fittick’s Park, and today I’ve been dressing up as St Fittick himself. I live down by the Victoria Bridge, so it’s not far from here. I was able to walk in today, which is good. And I got involved with the park group to try and rebuild my community. I used to be here mainly as a student.

And then all my friends moved away. And I didn’t. So I’ve been trying to just sort of get in and help any possible way I can, even if it means being silly. For anyone who isn’t seeing this, it’s a brown monk’s outfit. I also have a cowl that’s also made of this brown cotton fabric. And a cross plated with pretend gold.

Saint Fittick is the person this park is named after. A 7th century monk. He was meant to come to Scotland to teach the Picts everything about Christianity. The people he was sailing with didn’t trust him, there was a storm, and they decided he was the reason for it, so they took him overboard. He survived, and washed ashore, but was dehydrated and obviously couldn’t drink the salt water or the sea.

But found there was a natural spring here, and was able to drink that, and so he lived and declared it a holy site of sorts, because obviously God had graced him the will to survive and the ability to survive. There’s a little church a bit further up the hill to east from where we’re standing right this moment.

And I’m here today to basically be the mascot of the event. I’ve been trying to get kids to plant trees, and I’ve been going around telling everyone that I’m wishing them many blessings, and it’s all very silly and fun. If we can keep this going as a regular event, I think it can turn out to be something really positive and uplifting for the community.

Because people need to be reminded sometimes that we’re all actually here together and we can do fun things together. It’s not all the serious stuff. There’s a lot of really awful things going on right now. And this is an example of something positive and actually brilliant, you know?

Kaska Hempel: …So, can I ask what are you doing?

Mammal network worker: We’re part of North East Scotland Mammal Network. And we’re just a group of folk that are interested in mammals in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, just kind of raising awareness of the mammals that we have in the area and some of the issues that they face, some of the threats that they face.

And today one of the activities that we are doing is dissecting oil pellets, which is lots and lots of fun. This young lady is doing an absolutely excellent job, so you can see lots of the bones very clearly.

Kaska Hempel: Oh wow, that’s a skull.

Mammal network worker: Yep, got a really intact skull there, so I think this one is possibly a bank vault.

Kaska Hempel: It’s a whole head, isn’t it?

Participant: It’s getting a little bit creepy, like it’s angry….

Eva Schonfeld: I’m Eva Schonfeld. I’m part of Open Source, the organisation who supported the Torry People’s Assembly, the second Torry People’s Assembly, last year. And we’ve been working since then on this event today, Go Torry! Yeah, so it’s been, I think, really successful.

And what happened after the Assembly was, well, the first surprise for me was that the group wanted to keep on meeting. Because I was kind of thinking that once we finished the Assembly, that would be it. And we had some action points that came out of it. But the group was really keen to carry on meeting.

And we’ve followed about three or four different routes. There were some people who got really energised by, I think, the process of outreach that we’d done and noticing that there were actually lots more good things happening in Torry than they’d realised, but that quite often, the people who they spoke to didn’t know about each other.

So, there was this kind of quite strong feeling in two or three people of, like, let’s network, let’s have some events where we bring people together, we think about Torry, we think about the kinds of things we’ve been talking about in the Assembly and what’s next. The outdoor classroom that we are here to celebrate, it’s really galvanized by conversations that happen as part of that networking.

And one of the other things that came out of that process was an idea for a community website which would, again, show all the amazing things that are happening in Torry and make it really easy to find them all in one website. So, there’s been a lot of work gone on in the background to kind of develop that with Station House Media Unit, SHMU.

And then the last strand that came out of the Assembly was this retrofit idea, community retrofit idea. Up to now, retrofitting your property. It’s been really privatised. It’s been like, if you can afford it and if you’ve got the interest then you will do it. If you can’t afford it, or if it’s not top of your agenda, then you won’t do it.

But this idea of community retrofit is starting to come in, which means that is something that we’re doing together as a kind of like little collectives. And in Torry, we have this crazy dream, crazy because it’s never been done before at this scale, to retrofit the whole of Torry.

That’s 5,000 houses. And I believe the estimate is that it might take 15 years to do it. And that’s once we’ve actually kind of got the wind in our sails, which we haven’t yet. For us today has been about bringing that idea out into the public and starting to talk with people about it. And we were particularly interested because the RAAC crisis hit kind of halfway through the process of us developing this project and at first we kind of saw it as a real impediment to us talking about it.

People were understandably so upset about the RAAC and the fact that people were losing their homes, the council sounded like they wanted to demolish. And we thought if we start talking about people’s houses, not about RAAC, then folk are gonna be confused and be quite angry that we’re prioritising something in the face of this crisis.

But then this really cool idea, I think, got developed. Why not do both? Why don’t we just use that as an opportunity? We can do those houses first. So, this is an idea that we’ve already sort of sent into Scottish Government. We haven’t had a lot back yet. And we’re engaging with the council too on that.

So hopefully that’s something that could get taken up so that people’s houses don’t get demolished, they actually get upgraded….

Tree planting lead: …My back is really killing me. But see when I stand up there and I look across into that, I feel it’s been very worthwhile. So, this is apples and plums. The kids have helped plant them as well. So, if you come and have a look here. We’ve got little plaques. It’s the name of the tree. So that’s Red Falstaff, that one.

And the person that helped us plant it. So, part of that idea was to have the kids take ownership of it as well. So, they’ll be guardians of the orchard….

Nathaniel: …Right this way everybody! Right this way! Wonderful work guys, love it! …

Richard Caie: Thank you! I’m Richard Caie, I am a Torry resident, I’m also a member of Friends of St Fittick’s Park. We’re honoured today with the original St Fittick.

This wonderful classroom is courtesy of one of the many funds the Scottish Government has provided. Participatory budget fund. And many thanks to the representative from Scottish Government and MSP Maggie Chapman. The classrooms opened for all. Was voted for by the community, and it’s for everybody in the community to use.

I’d better say that in a few years if things don’t go well, there could be three dirty great big factories down there, huge amounts of wetlands built over. So, save St Fittick’s Park. That would be the message from today. So, that’s it. Thank you all.

Nathaniel: As your resident St Fittick today, I thought it would make sense to bring some of his spirit to the event. As an enlightened Christian, he would have probably loved to see a classroom space like this in St Fittick’s Park.

A verse from the Bible which he probably held so dear was Thessalonians 5. 11. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. I take it.

Kaska Hempel: …What about your word of the day?

Olga Bloemen: Stealthy resistance. I don’t know, it’s just claiming the park for the community. And that’s what is needed to save the park from the development.

By creating beauty and useful resources for the community. And edible fruits and you know, but still it’s resistance. Right? It’s resistance to this park being taken. Building up resilience as well. Yeah. Yeah. Both resistance and resilience. Yeah….

Outro

Kaska Hempel: It was again, a great privilege to witness the day of community coming together in celebration. Their idea is clearly gathering momentum. Disappointingly, the appeal against Council’s decision to allow for Energy Transition Zone Development on a large chunk of the park failed this summer.

In a statement published on their Facebook page on the 7th of August, Friends of St Fittick’s Park said, we are dismayed but not discouraged, we will continue to oppose the industrialisation of the community’s beloved park by all legal means. In the meantime, the St Fittick’s outdoor classroom is making acts of stealthy resistance much easier for the locals, reclaiming the space for the community, one bee hotel building workshop at a time.

And the Torry Assembly website is now live too. You can download a collection of poetry from the Go Torry Day at Tullos Community Centre and find out more about Torry Retrofit Project.

Resources

1000 Better Stories podcast episode about Torry Peoples’ Assembly of May 2023 – putting “just” back into “just transition” https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-5q33x-14be025

NEW! Torry Assembly website – with: