Interview with Tim Porteus, Scottish Greens candidate in Preston/Seton/Gosford

 Interview with Tim Porteus, Scottish Greens candidate in Preston/Seton/Gosford

Why a Scottish Green candidate in Preston & Seton?  

I lived in Prestonpans and partly grew up here in the late 1960s and early 70s. I had to leave when I was in the local High School after the death of my father, and moved to Edinburgh with my mum and three younger brothers. It was a hard time for us all in different ways. 

When I had the opportunity I moved back here 14 years ago, and since then have had the great fortune to have three more children, who now all attend the local schools I used to go to. I am married to a wonderful woman Katharina. She is originally from Germany, but now very much considers herself Scottish as well, and is at home here in the Pans.  

So I’m standing here because the ward is my home, where my family live, and where I have many memories. I love the area and the sense of community here. I want to help give something back.  

The ward has a proud industrial history. Coal mining took place for a 1,000 years here, every community in the ward has a mining heritage.  We had the earliest railway in the UK, bringing coal from Tranent to Cockenzie harbour. It was horse drawn, and the famous battle of Prestonpans in 1745 was fought over its rail tracks.  

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the ward was a centre of the industrial revolution. Salt panning, brickworks, pottery, soap making, and brewing  were just some of the other industries here. But also fishing and farming which still is still an important part of the local economy. There also used to be extensive market gardens growing vegetables which supplied surrounding areas including Edinburgh. So the ward has a rich and diverse working class history. 

Pretty much all of the industry has gone. The last very visible link to this old industrial past was Cockenzie Power station. It’s huge chimneys dominated the skyline. When I was a child we lived in a house close to the power station. It would wake me up at night as it let off steam with a roar. I remember days when it’s smoke would mean we’d have to run out and take the washing in because the wind direction sometimes brought pollution down on our garden. It was one of the worst polluting power stations in Europe. 

And yet there was a local pride in the power station too. Although the power station and its huge chimneys could not have been called conventionally bonny or good for the environment or our health, they were nonetheless a seen as proud symbol of our area by many locals. They were seen by many local people as monuments that put our community on the map.  You could see them from afar and say “there’s home.”  

The power station was decommissioned and demolished in 2015, and I have to be honest I had mixed emotions watching the chimneys come down. Part of me was glad because of the end of the pollution which damaged our health and the environment. But I also felt an incredibly sad at the end of an era; my early childhood had been spent in the shadow of them and now they were gone, along with all the other traditional industries of the area. I know I wasn’t the only one who felt this sadness.  

Since then the site has laid empty with debate about what it should be used for. There is a local community led campaign to have a Climate Change Centre on the site, called the 360 Centre. It’s an exciting and forward thinking proposal, which would bring training and research in the issue of Climate change but also transform the area for the good.  

Next to the site is an area called the Green Hills, which is an important open green space. The Green Hills look out over the Firth of Forth, the sea which sparkles in the sun, broods under the clouds and rages during storms. That’s the thing about this ward. It has an incredibly beautiful coastline, but it’s so neglected. The 360 Centre proposal includes exciting ideas to rejuvenate and improve the area. I think this area really deserves this investment. It would be a continuum of the area’s industrial importance, with a new focus on the green industries of the future. It’s also about the quality of our local environment in which we live. 

Working class communities have historically lived huddled next to the industries in which they worked. I suppose there was a practical reason for this in the past, but it also meant that working class  people were forced to live closest to the pollution, noise, smells, smoke, and environmental degradation of industry,  often in poor and cramped conditions.  

That’s why working class people were the first environmentalists, they fought for better conditions, and an end to pollution and the degradation of their living and working environment, and worked in solidarity with others in a similar situation. They also fought for the right to green and healthy spaces, and time to enjoy them. Maybe history doesn’t record this as environmental action but it certainly was. The wealthy capitalists who made profit from the industry could live well away from the pollution, in mansions surrounded by landscaped gardens with lots of trees and a pleasant natural environment.  But they weren’t the environmentalists, their workers fighting for better conditions were. 

So let’s get rid of the idea often promoted by opponents of the green movement that it’s a middle class concern; the exact opposite is true. Poverty and inequality fuels the environmental crisis because it’s a part of the system that exploits both people and nature for corporate profit. For real change to happen we need systematic change, a transformation of the economy which has value and sustainability at its heart, which benefits working people as well as addressing the environmental crisis we are in; because the environmental crisis is a product of the social crisis of poverty, inequality and exploitation. 

This is, of course, a local election with local issues and policies. I support the 360 proposal and there are many green party policies on transport, addressing poverty and it consequences, education and the focus on wellbeing in learning.  

Why are the Scottish Greens the best alternative?

The Scottish Greens say think global and act local. I think that’s an empowering message, it links what we can do locally with our vision for transformation globally. There is so much bad news that people need a sense of agency, that they can make a real difference, to their local area but also the planet. 

Locally we have huge housing developments which are transforming our area. They are being made as “commuter towns” because of our proximity to Edinburgh. People need places to live of course, but people don’t just live in their house, they live in their environment. No consideration is being made for how we address the environmental impact of these huge estates and the quality of life for people in the area. It’s such a lost opportunity, they are being built with no sense of local identity and connectivity, and environmental quality . That’s an issue locally, that is also a global one.