Portobello home page
Welcome to Portobello, Scotland’s first Transition Town.
We believe that the huge wave of communities around the UK – whether they’re transition Towns, Going Carbon Neutral, Sustainable, Community Buy Outs, kicking out plastic bags or getting more local food bought and sold, are showing that people have had enough of the way we've been doing things - and that there is another way - or lots of them! The huge challenges of Climate Change and Peak Oil have galvanised us to action in our thousands, and we have huge potential to make a fundamental difference to how we live in a way that government so far has not managed, and individuals on their own often feel is beyond them.
We started the process of becoming a Transition Town in 2005, just as our community was celebrating it's victory in a long battle against plans to put a Superstore at the end of our High Street. Inspired by Rob Hopkins’ description of the work done by his permaculture students in Kinsale, Ireland, we decided that we were ready to follow their example and develop our own Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP). As you will see, if you explore our website, we’ve gone some way towards this; learned a great deal; run several public events; and have two energetic groups (Food and Land Reform) with projects on the go up and running. Clearly there’s plenty more to be done, but we feel that we’ve made a great start, and hope to inspire other communities in our turn.
Please visit our website to see what we're up to: