The Community Access to Rooms project was launched as a pilot scheme in September 2022 to allow community groups that held an affiliation with the University to hire rooms on campus, free of charge. The University’s Executive has now approved the scheme to become a permanent arrangement and has also dropped the requirement for a pre-existing relationship to use the rooms. There are now more than 40 community groups who are using the buildings on offer across our campuses.
The project is one of the 32 practical commitments the University is making to Edinburgh’s local communities in its Community Plan, which runs from 2020-25. In this commitment, which is also a Scottish Government Social Impact Pledge, the University has publicly committed to create community access to rooms by 2025.
Helen-Rose Wood, Head of University Space, said: “Universities should be beacons of shared knowledge and growth and, as a place of learning, I think we have a civic responsibility to open our doors, so I was excited to get involved in this opportunity and allow wider access to some of the fantastic buildings we have on our estate.”
In 2022, Helen-Rose and her colleagues examined which spaces across campus would work for community groups.
She says: “We have quite a few of our buildings which are open after hours for clubs and societies for student bookings so we realised it would be relatively simple for us to extend that to our local community, which is one of the reasons we set up the pilot.
“For me, it’s really important that we’ve visibly made that commitment to the community and that it’s completely embedded within the Community Plan.”
Find out more
The full feature on the Community Access to Rooms project first appeared on Edinburgh Impact. Visit the site to hear from four community groups who are benefitting from using University space and view the accompanying short film, as well as additional photographs.
Free to flourish: Community groups thrive in University spaces | Edinburgh Impact