Udny Community Trust, Aberdeenshire UDNY Community Trust will celebrate Community Land Week at the Victorian building they acquired in Pitmedden in March last year, right at the start of lockdown, opening the doors of Cafe48 for “a breakfast roll or a soup and sweet”.
Yvonne McLeod, their development officer, said they bought the building with a £100,000 grant from the Scottish Land Fund and revenues from their subsidiary Udny Turbine Company, which manages the community owned turbine.
“The funds produced from selling locally produced clean energy are ploughed back in to the community,” she said.
“Our first priority was to open our community café which we did in November 2020, then we set about addressing some of the accessibility issues of the building.
“We have installed a disability accessible toilet for use by café customers and a wheelchair lift at the front door.
“Next, we intend to create an entirely new accessible entrance at the rear of the property. It’s a late Victorian building – so has required quite a bit of ingenuity and hard work to bring it up to 21st century standards.”
She said the opening of Cafe48 was quickly followed by the development of office and meeting spaces, which were created for use by staff and local community groups.
“We will be unveiling the newly refurbished ‘Quarry Room’ to visitors on 14th October,” added McLeod.
“The room is almost unrecognisable from the dark and dated restaurant that it used to be, and we are really keen to hear what folk think about the work we have been doing.”
