The first reporting trip for Far Nearer took place at the end of August, when I visited Portpatrick in Scotland.
I was visiting to document the extraordinary story of how villagers saved Portpatrick harbour.
Locals sold shares in the harbour to save it from private ownership, where it had been slowly declining for decades.
In beautiful Portpatrick where villagers bought shares in their historic harbour to save it from private ownership pic.twitter.com/YLLsTJOFM2
— Far Nearer (@far_nearer) August 26, 2016
Without drastic measures the harbour would have fallen into ruin, tourists would have stopped visiting and the village would have faced disaster.
I was made to feel welcome from the minute I got off the train from London in Stranraer to be greeted by Alec, Portpatrick’s only taxi driver, who drove me to the village.
Calum Currie, head of the Portpatrick Community Benefits Society, text me as soon as I checked into my hotel to ask if I would like to go out on a boat to make the most of the clear evening.
“I can be there in ten!” I text back. “How much will it cost?”
I wonder if he laughed at that. “It’s free,” he text back. “It’s my fishing boat.”
Over the next few days I was welcomed into cafes, pubs and even living rooms by locals eager to tell me about how Portpatrick harbour was saved.
Portpatrick is a great example of the third sector and the community galvanising to save an essential community asset using shares.
But their success rested one one key factor: engagement.
“Engagement levels were super high. They just needed to be educated about what to do,” said Kelly McIntyre, programme manager at Community Shares Scotland.
Calum led a campaign to save Portpatrick Harbour with a share sale one year ago. The key? “Transparency.” pic.twitter.com/QJii3tLYZj
— Far Nearer (@far_nearer) August 27, 2016
Everywhere I went in Portpatrick, it was obvious that here was a village where people cared about their community.
You can teach someone how to raise money through shares, but that kind of engagement is much harder to come by.
