In August 2024, Paul McLennan, the Scottish Minister for Housing, accompanied by his team and Fiona Geddes, Moray Council’s Housing Strategy and Development Manager, came to visit the Park to see the benefit that the Scottish Government’s Rural Housing Fund has brought within our settlement.

Ariane Burgess MSP had invited Mr McLennan to visit the Park during the Parliament’s summer recess, but unfortunately could not attend. Alex Walker coordinated bringing together a “meet and greet” team of all the Park organisations that have collaborated over the years to deliver on affordable housing. Those present were Alessandro Daboni of Park Ecovillage Trust (PET), Fasil Bogale from Ekopia Social Investment Enterprise, Eian Smith of Duneland Limited, and Green Leaf Design & Build (GLDB)’s Jason Caddy.

It was a delight to host these key partners at the Woodside housing cluster, the surroundings in bloom with a great variety of flowers and signs of happy living. We give special thanks to Ursula Pfahler and Judith Bone for opening their homes and talking about their quality of life as residents.

It was a great honour for PET to be able to showcase our affordable homes to the Housing Minister, and to outline how key the Rural Housing Fund has been, alongside the collaboration with Ekopia, Duneland and private investors to be able to deliver these eco-build affordable homes. The buildings also benefit from communal heating systems that help hold back the crunch from the ever more expensive energy market.

Discussing plans for North Whins photo PET

Discussing plans for North Whins photo PET

Paul McLennan and his team were then invited to visit the North Whins site to see what the latest round of Rural Housing Funding will help realise: the first set of Park affordable homes that will be sold to private ownership within the Duneridge development. GLDB and Duneland were excited to present all of what makes Duneridge a unique proposition, from how it is tied together by a Co-Housing Co-Operative, to how its three very distinct district heating systems were developed with the aid of Strathclyde University participation, thanks to research funding provided by the Just Transition Fund (JTF).

The overall sense from the visit is that our little Ecovillage continues to deliver on innovation, with Minister Paul McLennan requesting a case study of Duneridge in particular, with a view to researching the possibility of delivering these types of development in other rural settings across Scotland.

Written by Alessandro Daboni, PET Housing Director