Gail Halvorsen has been actively involved in community projects since she became a board member of Gorebridge Community Development Trust (GCDT) in 2007. She was taken on to advise the board about building a community centre, now called Gorebridge Beacon. At that stage it was just the germ of an idea in the mind of the then chair, Archie Pacey. Gail advised the board on this site, helped with community engagement, and oversaw the procurement and building of the new £3m centre.
Locality Plan
At the instigation of the Scottish Government, GCDT and Midlothian Community Planning Partnership worked to produce a Locality Plan for Gorebridge – a pilot to be rolled out over the rest of Midlothian. A series of World Cafe workshops were held to garner the views of local residents on such subjects as health, safety and business opportunities. These were collated into a series of documents outlining the developments and improvements that local residents wanted to see in their town. GCDT and MCPP collaborated with a wide range of stakeholders (including NHS, police and fire services and social workers). Halvorsen Architects carried out various studies on Gorebridge including ones on housing, green and urban spaces and transport for the plan.