Inverclyde Shed: Community project works for local people

The space – described as a ‘community workshop’ – is expansive and welcoming: it somehow manages to feel both bigger and smaller than it really is, and the high ceilings, exposed girders, visible machinery and joyful yellow paint scheme combine to create a striking and surely unique organisational headquarters.

But as you might expect of a volunteer-run, non-profit collective in Greenock, the surroundings weren’t always quite so grand.

“This all started in a 20ft shipping container,” says Bruce Newlands, an architect by trade who serves as secretary and treasurer. He was also a founding trustee of the charity behind the Shed.

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Taking over and refurbishing the property has been made possible by a Community Asset Transfer (CAT). This scheme allows local people to identify publicly-controlled locations – both buildings and open spaces – that have been under-utilised or abandoned and apply to take them over. The public body involved, which is often but not always a local council, must agree to the request unless there are “reasonable grounds for refusal”.

Although the area, like many others in post-industrial Scotland, isn’t short of neglected or abandoned buildings, few are controlled by the government, local authority, or another public body and are instead owned privately, which leaves them beyond the reach of community organisations like this. So when the group learned that this old and unloved garage was not only council property, but clearly surplus to requirements, the wheels began to turn – albeit very slowly.

The CAT process – the first in Inverclyde – started in September 2019. A little over two years later, the organisation signed a 25-year, £1 per annum lease for the building, with refurbishment beginning in March 2022. Twelve months after that the building was formally opened. It finally became available to the community in May 2023 following a fit-out funded by the Scottish Government and supported by the local council and Local Energy Scotland.

On the day of my visit a new array of solar panels (secured thanks to further government funding) has also been activated, which means that a large workshop containing lathes, saws, a CNC machine, a laser cutter, a 3D printer and even infra-red heaters is not just self-sustaining in terms of energy: it will generate more power than it uses for most of the year.

The Invercylde Shed (Image: FREE)

In some ways, what the Shed offers is very simple: a space to work, tools to use and people to talk to. Anyone over 18 is welcome come along, and take part in the sharing of knowledge and skills in a relaxed environment. This is, very clearly, a place that has been built around the principles of free, informal, peer-to-peer learning.

Training is provided to ensure people can use the machinery properly, with members then able to share this information and support those who wish to learn: during my visit one volunteer was teaching another how to safely operate a large belt sander they needed to use for DIY.

Some members, Bruce explains, just come to use the tools and generally like to work alone – but even then, he adds, it doesn’t usually take long for someone else to be drawn to whatever this new project might be, even if just to ask what’s going on. Ultimately, a huge amount of what happens here is collaborative and co-creative, which reflects a culture that has been carefully nurtured.

Every person here is a volunteer and hierarchies are seen as something to be avoided wherever possible. Decisions on activities such as funding applications or links to other organisations are made by a seven-person board (four men and three women, which broadly reflects the overall membership figures) who are charged with acting “in the best interest of [their] members and the shed”.

Working together naturally opens up new opportunities and bigger challenges.

John, a former prison officer and a trustee of the charity, shows me a pen that has been made in the workshop – “they’re done by wood turning and we buy in the workings” – which is a popular project.

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I am also shown a model of a skiff, a type of wooden rowing boat, which has been put together by members as a proof of concept. Ultimately, the plan is to work together, sharing skills and knowledge to produce a full-sized version that can be taken beyond the workshop and into the water, perhaps in collaboration with the local yacht club or school.

In a corner of the room I find a pile of wooden planks for members to use. Each sheet has the same irregular hexagonal shape cut out of the middle, and though I recognise it, I can’t quite figure out what I’m looking at.

“Offcuts,” Bruce says with a mischievous smile. “We get them from a funeral home.”

Nobody is here to worry about completing course assessments or filling out tracking data, nor are they having to align what they want to do with what an SQA specification document would demand. The Scottish Funding Council has no power here, and the notion that all education must generate a recognisable qualification has been entirely – and rightfully – rejected.

Pretty much everything stands in contrast to the strict time-management, spreadsheet-worshipping and obsession with certificated outcomes that puts so many people off formal adult education. The people doing the learning are the same ones doing the teaching.

And yet, even the idea of education is a secondary concern – a vehicle for achieving something even more valuable.

The Shed (Image: free)

“It’s the cup of tea and a chat that we’re really all about,” says Bruce, and despite all of the equipment around me, and all the money spent on bringing the project to life, I know he’s telling the truth. The kitchen, not the workshop floor, is the real beating heart of the Inverclyde Shed, because it is here that the sense – and power – of community is felt most strongly.

Bruce, John and the other trustees and members are proud of what has been achieved so far, and so they should be. This isn’t a place for wallowing in the past, and the restoration of the building hasn’t been driven by the sort of aimless industrial nostalgia that, it is pointed out to me, tends to be the preserve of those too young to remember what the work was really like. People come here to look forward, not back.

Here in Greenock, thanks to the dedication of volunteers, a surviving link to the area’s past has been brought back to life and – in a flourish of beautiful cosmic symmetry – into the service of a new community of people whose lives are tied to that very history.