Friday January 13th 2023
The Community Development Trust One Dalkeith is making good progress on the various phases of work on its Eskdaill Court building in Dalkeith.
The community organisation have completed the first phase of works The One Dalkieth Hub now provides space for business incubators, co-working spaces with hot desk facilities, and a small study and hybrid meeting room, all of which are available to book by the hour.
Since these spaces became available, the Hub has secured bookings from third-sector organisation Play Midlothian who are using it to offer free play sessions and The Action Group who are the first to lease a permanent desk and join the co-working facility in the Hub. The TSB is now at the Hub every Tuesday for customers to pop in. Midlothian Council’s Lifelong Learning is just one of many local organisations to book facilities for training courses.
Just before Christmas, One Dalkeith cleared the co-working space to make way for seven drumkits to hold a drumming workshop organised by Kenny Hutchison and led by the drummer from Scottish band Del Amitri, Jim McDermott.
Phase Two of work is also nearing completion and this includes the cookery class Kitchen, Pop-up Cafe, OuterSpace and Club Room.
Phase Three work is underway and due for completion in the Spring and will include the refurbishment of the Community DIY Workshop and the Circle Theatre. In addition to the refurbishment works in the Circle, One Dalkeith have installed a 13-foot cinema projection screen, complete with a sound system, to run affordable community cinemas.
Importantly Phase Three will also see the exterior of the Hub having a facelift, replacing the two front doors and the blue metal signage.
Phase Four of the project will bring a Pop-Up Shop to the Hub, where local enterprises can rent an affordable shelf in the town centre retail facility. The Pop-Up shop will launch in November 2023 and bring a mix of local producers and crafters into Dalkeith town centre. In the meantime, plans for the retail space are for a youth-led well-being Hub named One Youth. One Youth will start refurbishing the retail space in January.
One Dalkeith was established as a Community Development Trust and Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) in 2017. Itis a volunteer-led charity where many local people give up their free time to make One Dalkeith happen. As they say “It is run and owned by the local community for the local community.”
You can find out more about One Dalkeith on their new website, which includes an online booking system to hire community and business facility spaces www.onedalkeith.info.
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