IT’S at times like this when the depth of one’s ignorance becomes all too obvious.

Let me set the scene…

Up near Fairmilehead crossroads, there’s a modern, fairly large and standalone office block, that’s owned by Scottish Water.

For various reasons - not least because of home working by many of its staff - it has been deemed surplus to requirements.

A Proposal of Application Notice (PAN) has been successfully submitted - here (ref: 26/00798/PAN) - with two in-person, public consultation events having already been hosted.

The proposal reads: “Demolition of all existing buildings and the proposed erection of a residential-led (Class 9/Sui-Generis) mixed-used development and other associated works and infrastructure - including car parking, servicing, access arrangements and landscaping.”

The next steps are a planning-in-principle application, and - assuming that is granted - for the site to be put up for sale.

It is just one of several residential development opportunities dotted around the city.

But if any community group was to entertain the idea of developing any of them - along designs agreed in advance by prospective residents - the chances of it coming off are always going to be remote.

Assuming it was even possible to gather a list of local people potentially interested in moving into housing on the Scottish Water site (a gargantuan task in its own right), there are so many skillsets required to translate community aspirations into reality, it can prove just too daunting.

It’s a lucky community group, indeed, that has, among its ranks, any legal, architectural, planning, financial, chartered surveying, residential development, quantity surveying or construction expertise.

Not to mention an intimate knowledge - should the opportunity exist (such as with the Scottish Water building) - of how to potentially take advantage of community empowerment legislation (stretching back to 2015), which could provide a community right-to-buy opportunity, including via a Community Asset Transfer.

The sad reality of trying to knit a patchwork of skillsets together - by contacting individual skills and information providers - can often end up in not even receiving the courtesy of a reply.

The city council is not averse to setting up pilot projects - it did so, relatively recently, in October, with a ‘right-to-grow’ project agreed by the city council’s Culture and Communities committee (here, agenda item 7.1).

The job description for any possible council member of staff - responsible for supporting community-led housing - might well be to look for a generalist (perhaps with an intimate knowledge of community empowerment legislation), who is able to make good links with all the various other necessary specialists.

Alternatively, an organisation might be somehow funded, so that it is able to attract volunteer expertise.

Planning Aid Scotland seems to have somehow ‘cracked that nut’, and it could provide a template as to how to establish a similar, sustainable organisational structure.

Another possible template is Zero Waste Scotland, which is a not-for-profit environmental organisation and a company limited by guarantee that is primarily funded by the Scottish Government.

The truth is community-led housing sounds great in theory. In practice, the challenges can be legion.

This website has published several articles extolling the virtues of resident-designed housing (here).

Among the possible elements of a potential tenemental development: car and bike sharing, recycling and refuse, a residents’ handbook (as in here, on BuildEdinburgh), communal gardening, power tools sharing, gym facilities, ‘later living’ requirements, communal laundry facilities, litter picking, storage space, social and meeting space, repair and maintenance, wildlife havens, acoustic and thermal insulation, elevator access, outdoor games courts, acoustic and thermal insulation, super-secure door entries, outdoor seating and lighting, secure car and bike parking, guest bedrooms, children’s play park, bulk buying of provisions, adjacent properties for extended families (not least for those with caring responsibilities), trees, common insurance, dedicated indoor space for young people, book clubs, crafting space, spring flowers, sanctuary courtyard, solar panels, balconies, ground floor retail, co-working space, treatment rooms and offices, etc, etc.

They represent little more than serving suggestions, with some elements offering the distinct possibility of saving people money.

Because, after all, it would be for the community to decide.

Mike Wilson is editor of BuildEdinburgh

Image details: the Scottish Water offices at Fairmilehead; copyright Mike Wilson

IN resident-designed housing, there might be a strong demand to share washing machines - and with good reason.

Arguably, the most obvious reason for sharing machines is the prospect of cost savings.

Another is to help reduce the number of machines that require to be manufactured, ie helping save the planet.

Where an individual household might be tempted to spend around £450 on a Bosch machine (such as the model advertised here, on the John Lewis website), four households could together splash out £800 between them for a presumably superior model (such as this one, here).

That’s a cost saving of circa £250 per household, while being able to use an arguably more expensive (and hopefully more robust and ‘cleverer’) machine.

In addition, depending on where the washing machine(s) is (or are) located, shared laundry facilities can reduce the risk of noise disturbance or flooding from the floor above - if in an apartment block.

Shared washing machines also save on space within individual homes: at a chunky 60cm wide, apiece.

But as posts (here) on the discussion platform - Reddit - attest, the sharing of washing machines is not always as clean-cut a decision as it might initially seem.

Check out the risk of neighbour disputes because of residue, over-use of bleach and even theft of clothes.

In other words, assuming the best of people is not always to be advised.

As for paying for a wash, of course the price could be calculated manually, guided by the likes of the website, Smol (here).

And booking a washing slot can also be done manually.

But there are also several apps to choose from, including appWash by Miele and WeWash (which also offers full laundry room fit-out - including machines - and presumably can additionally advise the optimal number of machines per group of households).

And then there is clothes drying to consider…

Meanwhile, the US-based commercial laundry leasing company, Caldwell & Gregory, offers useful advice, including ‘etiquette rules for shared apartment laundry’ - here.

And the UK magazine, Good Housekeeping, offers half a dozen ‘laundry room rules’ - here.

Mike Wilson is editor of BuildEdinburgh

Image details: outdoor public laundry facilities, Tyndrum (there’s a similar one in the Morrison’s car park, at Hunter’s Tryst); copyright Mike Wilson

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But it is one thing to imagine, it is ano…

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