Everyday Changemakers - Carolyn Powell, Huntly Development Trust

In the first episode of our Everyday Changemakers shorts series we meet Carolyn Powell from Huntly Development Trust who's working on community-led town centre regeneration. Credits: Produced by Kaska Hempel Resources Trust Website: https://www.huntlydt.org/ Number 30/Town Centre development: https://www.huntlydt.org/what-we-do/town-centre Carolyn’s bio https://www.huntlydt.org/about-us/people New Economics Foundation https://neweconomics.org/ Climate Action Towns (Architecture and Design Scotland): https://www.ads.org.uk/resource/climate-action-towns Climate Action Towns film: https://youtu.be/ZMj9PMrUwjs Transcript: [00:00:27] Kaska Hempel: Welcome to our Everyday Changemakers series. Wee blethers with everyday people taking climate action in their communities.  [00:00:38] Kaska Hempel: Hello, it's Kaska, one of your Story Weavers. Today's guest is Carolyn Powell from the Huntley Development Trust. She's been involved in a redevelopment of an iconic listed building in Huntley's main square. The Number 30, as it's affectionately known, is being transformed into a multipurpose community space with green credentials. [00:01:01] Kaska Hempel: This project is a cornerstone of the trust's investment into community driven regeneration of the town centre. I caught up with Carolyn at Stirling at the May gathering for the Climate Action Towns project supported by Architecture And Design Scotland. She was one of the presenters in an aspirational showcase of towns taking a place-based approach to issues facing communities locally, including the climate emergency. [00:01:30] Kaska Hempel: I started by asking her to describe the building she's been working on.  [00:01:37] Carolyn Powell: The building is in the middle of the town square, and what's wonderful about it is it's slightly magical. It has a tower at one end, and albeit that tower is not hollow, there's something about it that's reminiscent of a castle. [00:01:54] Carolyn Powell: And you can imagine children making up stories about it, and it's on the corner overlooking, you know, right overlooking the square. So, as you come into the town, that's what you see. So, it makes the setting for something that magical that's going to happen. And hopefully with its renovation, something magical will happen. [00:02:17] Carolyn Powell: I'm Carolyn Powell. I work for Huntley Development Trust and I'm Town Centre Development Manager. I work in Huntley, but I live on the coast just 20 miles away, half an hour from Huntley.  [00:02:28] Kaska Hempel: How did you get involved in Community Action? What's your journey? [00:02:32] Carolyn Powell: I come from a semi-commercial background, but around about 2006 I began working for the New Economics Foundation and the interest that I'd had in regeneration was fuelled and I started working on different projects for them. One in particular was really a ground up approach to entrepreneurship. So, people in places actually turning their interests and their passions into work, into a job, and supporting them to do that. [00:03:04] Carolyn Powell: So that's really where the drive comes from and the understanding that in any community there are people who can change not only their own future, but the collective future as well. And that is primarily driven by the desire and the passion to do something.  [00:03:20] Kaska Hempel: When I say place-based approach. What's your first reaction to it? [00:03:26] Carolyn Powell: People. It's all about people. It must be.  [00:03:31] Kaska Hempel: And if you were to explain that concept to somebody that doesn't know anything about it, how would you explain it?  [00:03:37] Carolyn Powell: So, we have had periods in our history where we've designed around transport and roads and how things might look rather than people. People came second, they were put into that picture. [00:03:51] Carolyn Powell: People are the picture, how they use the space. I mean, you wouldn't want a designer coming in to design your k