Eilean Eisdeal’s Masterplanning

With Masterplanning in train at both Bowmore on Islay and Inveraray in Mid Argyll, Easdale, one of Argyll’s Slate Islands has skimmed into the picture.

The island launched its Masterplanning project last weekend with a well attended consultation meeting on Sunday 18th July.

Yes – the day was one with fine summer weather but islanders packed the community hall, keen to discuss the future of their tiny but dynamic island community.

The meeting started with a presentation by island resident, Mike MacKenzie, well known to readers of For Argyll for the series of thoughtful articles he wrote in our Political Challenge series in the run up to the General Election in May this year. In that election, at which he represented the SNP, he came fourth and put 27.5% on his party’s vote in Argyll. He and Education Minister, Michael Russell, are the last men standing in the contest to be selected as the SNP’s candidate for Argyll and Bute in the Scottish Elections in May 2011.

Mr Mackenzie gave a brief description of Masterplanning followed by an overview of some of the challenges the community face.

A long-time fan of masterplanning, he says: ‘Master planning really is the silver bullet of community development and regeneration.

‘Ideally I would like to see each of the constituent communities across Argyll and Bute construct their own Master plan. The community of Gigha did one a few years ago and there are currently Master plans under way in Inveraray and Bowmore’.

Waseem Hussain, of Argyle Architecture, then led the discussion in a mind mapping session which allowed contributions from virtually everyone in attendance to be noted and logged for future discussions and research.

Waseem says: ‘I am very enthusiastic about being involved in this masterplanning project for this great little community and heartened by the many positive and constructive suggestions made during the meeting.

‘We were introduced to Mind Mapping by Jim Mather MSP when he led the discussion in the first consultation meeting of our Scottish Gas Green Streets project in January.

‘I became aware then what a great tool Mind Mapping was for consultation meetings of this kind and now that I have used it myself, I would certainly recommend it as a useful tool for architects carrying out similar public consultations’.

Keren Cafferty, Chair of Eilean Eisdeal says: ‘Now that our Green Streets project is well underway we felt the time was right to consider the future of the island in a more holistic way.

‘This will be the first of a series of ongoing consultations which will consider every aspect of island life and address the question of where we want to be as a community in ten or twenty years time.

‘Unfortunately, Fiona Scott, our local planning officer, was unable to attend but she did visit the island recently and we were greatly impressed with her constructive approach to community problems and her understanding of the island. We will be sharing the output of Sunday’s meeting with all who attended’.

Eilean Eisdeal is an energetic and  proactive community which gets on with looking to its future sustainability and which has an enviable gift for light-heartedness. Its masterplanning will be useful to follow.