Mike Vickers' Blog

Five teams, drawn from across the whole Linlithgow community, took part in The Future City Game held on 24^th March under the auspices of the British Council and the guidance of Architecture + Design Scotland.  The Game was generously hosted by Sun / Oracle and has facilitated by Monika Komarowska specially flown in from Warsaw.  Monika had already run 7 successful games across Europe.

The Game normally takes three days but we packed it into a hectic one day.  We started with briefings on Linlithgow as it is at present and its immediate future and what we might have to cope with in 2035 where energy costs could be 10 times what they are today. 

The five teams:

• sat down to work for each to come up with a solutions as to how the Linlithgow community will cope, sustain and prosper in what will be extremely challenging circumstances.  Needless to say the teams came up with very varying solutions but all featured self sufficiency. 
• solutions were then subjected to examination by three teams of local experts; business, community and one from the Academy.  The Academy students are of course the most interested of all of us as to life in 2035.
• presented their solutions to everyone and we all had a chance to vote.

The five teams’ solutions were:

Orange Team   LIFT – Linlithgow Investment Futures Trust – a revolving trust kick started from energy savings and maintained by funds from the community whether business start-ups, Celebrate Linlithgow, natural resources for energy generation, or just investments by the community at large

Yellow Team   Eco Zone – led by ‘the young voice’ with the community providing them with more facilities and entertainment all eco friendly

Red Team       Linlithgow Enterprise Park – creating an enterprise park to encourage talent to stay in Linlithgow.  Built on the North of the Loch so that business is separated from the historic centre which is pedestrianised

Blue Team       Live local Linlithgow – being self sufficient in energy and food, managing waste and focusing on public transport

Green Team    The Living Room – creating a HUB at the heart of the town, making the Cross a place where the whole community, young and old feel at home in its ‘living room’

The winning team – Yes it’s the Orange Team with its revolving trust.  The concept will now be taken forward and hopefully lead to a full feasibility study which could evolve into a Development Trust as created by North Harris, Eigg and Tiree.  In such a trust all members of the Linlithgow community would be eligible to one vote and a trust board would be elected to represent the interests of the community and oversee the operation of the trust and the distribution of the funds.

One interesting point, although LIFT was the winner, all solutions offer a way forward for Linlithgow and are largely complementary and should be viewed sympathetically by the Linlithgow Aspires Project.