This is the potential site which has the most time and effort put into it thus far in terms of creating a location available for community moorings.
Firstly some photos…
- 175m of canal frontage
- 4 acres of land
- Road access
- Water supply
- Electric connection
- 2 miles from Linlithgow
Just tootled past on the boat:
I bought this field in the winter after two years of cycling up and down the Union Canal looking for available land. Originally this was to facilitate the Greenspace project and also as a plot of land for my own interests, however as the intention was always to have moorings available for a number of boats as visitor moorings, my attention has now turned to creating this as one of the first Community Moorings sites.
For those not familiar, the Lowlands Canals Greenspace Initiative was my first stab at a canal-side social enterprise. The premise being making land available in the middle of the Union and F&C canals so boaters can store firewood, grow food, hold events etc etc. We were given land at Auchinstarry to use for free by SC and i brought in £5k funding and we now have a great wee community growing area. Unfortunately thanks to theft and vandalism our wood stores are gone and the swings, outdoor cinema and seating area were trashed. But the polytunnel and raised beds have been a fantastic success and will continue. However the Community Moorings Initiative has more value to the canals i believe and so i intend to suck up the Greenspace element into that.
So… the plan with this land is to put all the infrastructure in place on the land and make this available to the boating community. My plan is to begin a market garden venture on the land itself and use that business to pay for putting in the infrastructure e.g. electric, water, parking, internet, storage etc. The idea is to grow fruit n veg on the land, load on to boats and deliver locally – like they did 150 years ago! I’d love to see this venture expand into other foods and crafts (maybe a microbrewery and bakery in the barn???) and again use the canal for delivery. I have a funding deadline at the end of April and i should know this summer if that has been successful which will help build a barn and put in roads/paths etc. Already i have road access, electric connection and water so we’re half way there.
The first 3-5m of the land is owned by Scottish Canals and so the actual Community Moorings would be on their land and much like other sites, an access and business arrangement would be just as necessary as anywhere else. This also means that the land project and the moorings project can be viewed as hopefully working brilliantly together but not reliant on each other. For example if the moorings don’t happen, i can get on with the land-based project and vice versa. I don’t want to be overly pushy with this site if we want to start elsewhere, but at the same time my heart is in this site and i think it could be amazeballs.
I would love more input as to how to make the land work best for the moorings, so if you have ideas on this, please comment or get in touch.