Community Hub & Regeneration Consultations

Hello all!

The Penicuik Rethought campaign on Facebook is currently running a consultation on the creation of a Community Hub in Penicuik. It would be sited on the plot of the former Jackson Street School. Midlothian Council are aware of our proposals and have sent us over details about the price of the site and a design brief. Therefore we have appointed architects to start designing the building however before we commence proceedings further we are asking for the view of the community. If you would like to have you say simply log on to www.pen-y-cog.org.uk/community-hub-plans before the end of May.

After this consultation closes, we get straight into our next one about the Regeneration of Penicuik's town centre and other areas. If you would like to stay updated about this, join the Town Team at www.pen-y-cog.org.uk/join-us.

Finally, we have launched a petition aimed at bringing back a railway line to Penicuik. Transport Scotland have been made aware of this and with the new Borders railway line passing so close by we could stand a chance of being reconnected. To sign this visit https://www.change.org/petitions/bring-back-penicuik-s-railway-line.

So that is about all from me but to stay updated follow our Facebook back at www.facebook.com/pen.y.cog or keep checking our site, www.pen-y-cog.org.uk, or The Penicuik Cuckoo's site at www.penicuikcuckoo.co.uk.

Thank you and remember we are always looking for new volunteers if you would like to help out. Simply email us at campaigns@pen-y-cog.org.uk.

All very worthy but a bit transparency would be appreciated, please. Who are the 'we' with all these ideas?

Oh sorry I keep doing that (that being not introducing the team). Our non-profit organisation is called the Pen-Y-Cog Group. My name is Thomas Scott and I am the Managing Director. Volunteering for us under the Town Team are two others (I'm not disclosed to tell you their names) and we have some writers for our news aspect. A more structured management system is being drawn up before we apply to become a registered charity later this year. We are always looking for volunteers because the more the merrier and it will be easier to become a charity if we have more loyal supporters!

Tried connecting to this site today, sadly no access:
http://www.pen-y-cog.org.uk/pen-y-cog-group/

omala wrote:

Tried connecting to this site today, sadly no access:
http://www.pen-y-cog.org.uk/pen-y-cog-group/

Sorry it's probably an old link due to the fact we changed our websites a week ago. You should try going to our homepage, link is in my original post, and use the menu to navigate. If this doesn't work try emptying your cache and try accessing again. Apologies for the trouble.

I'm with you, Lothian Lass.
I've got a nasty suspicious mind and I cannot help feeling that our "other two" are a couple of the usual suspects with ideas that have never seen planet earth and probably never will.
Like Crystal FM and its fantasists, the Hub has about the same chance of being anything other than a building site as I do of having twins.
I could be wrong of course. These idiots surely must get something right now and again.

Sorry, Mr Scott. I just don't think you know who you've hitched your wagon to.

I have great faith in our Town Team and great faith in Penicuik. So yes we might be on a train to nowhere but there is always the possibility that something in Penicuik can be successful. Unfortunately it may not succeed but at least then we will hopefully brought the community together to realise the potential of our town. That is my personal view and other people could believe that the town is dead and cannot be revived but until someone has tried make a change, even a small one, we can't write Penicuik off yet.

So thank you for the concern but we're seeing this one out to the end whether it is good or bad.

As I've said before, good luck to anyone with ideas and the determination to carry them out.
I think your comment "until someone has tried to make a change ..." is going to get a few backs up and up a few noses. Without even stopping to think for more than five seconds I could name a couple of dozen people who over the years have tried to make a change and got precious little thanks for it.
You may have great faith in your "Town Team" but if you can't let the people of Penicuik know who they are I doubt that they are going to inspire a great deal of confidence in the general public. I don't know what RogerRabbit's experience of Penicuik is but he's right about one thing and that is that if what I think he means by the "usual suspects" are involved then there are plenty of people active in their own way in Penicuik who will not trust your "Town Team" as far as they could throw them.

Just sayin'

Listen Thomas, I wish you well with this project, as I would for anyone trying to improve Penicuik........ But with the best will in the world there's something totally cock-eyed about it all.

When I read your above posts and look at the survey, the whole thing starts to read:

We don't know what we're going to do and we don't know what the people of Penicuik want us to do, but as a first step, we're going to erect a built-for-purpose building to do it in.

And this in a town with a growing stock of empty premises.

Like a couple of others, I begin to think I see familiar fingerprints all over this "idea".

I have had a careful look at the proposals for the Jackson/John Street Hub. Most activities are already catered for in Penicuik. May I suggest an Astro Bakery, then we could all enjoy a daily slice of Sky Pie.

Thank you everyone for your comments. It really does help to hear other views from the community.

We will try to be more transparent however this will have to be consulted with our volunteers. Our Hub plans aim to cater for a lot of things in the one purpose built building and yes we may not know what everyone would like yet, but in due course we will.

Yet again, your comments are appreciated.

Mr. Scott, please excuse the scepticism expressed on posts but the plans, during an economic climate as is are to say the least ambitious. The purchase and development of John St. site, railway station and whatever else amount to a fantastic ammount, £Millions.

Counter Terrorism and Money Laundry Laws mean that the man in the street cannot open a bank account with out proving his true identity. Yet you expect the good people of Penicuik to support such a high maintainence project without knowing WHO or What is behind it.

I await sight of the minutes of meetings and proof the Project Manager was not selfappointed, as I am sure will OSCR.

I still have no idea who 'we' are and I'm not expecting a list of named individuals. I would, however, be happy with a list of the skills and experience that 'we' have. Enthusiasm is fine but without the aforementioned it's a complete waste of energy, time and in some cases, money (sadly, often that of Jo Public and not the enthusiastic 'we').

Trying to be transparent will not be enough for the Charity Regulator. That body is very demanding and your group will require to be have a water-tight constitution, stated aims and be willing to make it's accounts available to Tom, Dick and Harry - and LothianLass if she so fancies a peek at them. As for having lots of supporters, OSCR won't be the least bit impressed by that.

I've had a look at your questionnaire and it's not in the least professional. For example, question five is especially silly:

Quote :

5. Would you use the "Hub"? If so how often would you utilise it's facilities?

What facilities? I need to know that before I can answer.

I've read your responses to posts on this topic and I have to say that I've heard it all before and I too suspect 'the usual suspects' have a hand in this.

I wonder why you posted this in 'the lounge' and not in 'local issues'?

............and apart from anything else, the best use for the Jackson St School site would be a desperately needed Pay-and-Display carpark. Then, visitors coming to savour the limited attractions of Penicuik or just have a look round, eat a meal etc., would be able to spend more than 45 minutes enjoying their visit before they had to worry about getting a ticket.

For as long as I can remember Penicuik has been blessed with people with ideas and the passion to put those ideas into practice. The result has been some small benefit to the local people which is really as much as you can hope for in a town like Penicuik which for 50 years (and especially since the closure of the Valleyfield Mill in 1975) has been a dormitory/commuter town and has suffered — as have many others in like condition — from the proximity of a major city and the "necklace" of crinkly sheds that have sprung up around it over the last 30 years.
Cricket, football, rugby all thrive (though the Rugby Club is going through a sticky patch at the moment). The Horticultural Society, Bridge Club, Rotary, Folk Club were all popular and well attended last time I looked. Every one of these was founded by local people some of them as long as 150 years ago. (And my apologies to anyone I haven't mentioned!)
Penicuik has also been bedevilled for at least the last decade and a half by an amorphous group (amorphous in the sense that there is a "core" which attracts, for a short period at least, others who see potential benefits in certain activities and are usually attracted by the prominence of the word 'community' in all these affairs) with a series of ideas which are at best wildly ambitious and at worst downright fanciful.
So much so that, with a few obvious exception, the word "community" when attached to anything new that is being proposed in Penicuik needs to be approached with the same caution that one should use with a St Bernard dog. While its intentions are probably good the result will be to suffocate you just the same.
Now if you want to accuse me of negativity, go ahead. But when I hear talk of "the Jackson Street site" and "community hub" and "regeneration", not to mention "community radio" sirens start to sound and red lights flash all round me.
So my advice, for what it's worth and from a very long distance away, is to be very wary of people who have grand plans for all sorts of buildings in Penicuik (they have an obsession with other people's property, be they town halls or derelict schools or gardens or mills or even printing shops - and those are just the ones I know about!) because with one or two small self-financing exceptions they are long on fantasy and short on staying power.
I may be way off beam but what I am reading on this thread is sounding awfully familiar!

Exactly!

fifty year ago they wis gaunae build anither cinnema and then aboot fourty they wis gaunae be a boots an a woollworth an a sorts but nane of them everr hapened

Just as well we didn't get Woollies - that would have been yet another empty shop!

Yaaaaawn!

I never knew the line was engineered by Bouch.
After all those bridges you would have thought he could gave got the Tay right!

Wassamatter, Chris? Not a railway buff?

maybe im missing the point here but why build something and then decide what to do with it, hardly purpose build it you dont know the purpose?

Would it not better taking over one of the empty shops first and see how it goes and then in a few years time build somewere if its a success.

were will the money be coming from to build this hub?

At some point in the future i will be looking for a office/room in penicuik to run a business from. it could be the hub is what im looking for who knows?

wendy

Au contraire Mike en fait si vous aimeriez une copie d'un livre qui a été publié cette semaine, appelée « Le Claes Pole », s'il vous plaît me permettre de savoir. Drôlement assez je disais Margaret Coull de lui hier. Ecrit par un Penicuik homme Jim Neil. £10. Me permettre de savoir et je peux commander une copie et le poste loin à vous

is that in th shopes or jist in ammazin ? ma pal said tae ask