An Aberdeenshire handyman charity which has been searching for a space to call home for almost two years could start setting up shop next week.
The Ellon and District Men’s Shed group was set up in 2013 and has been looking to establish a workshop and social space in the area ever since.
And next week the group will find out if its bid for a community asset transfer of a former Aberdeenshire Council’s depot on Ellon’s Hospital Road has been a success.
The group has proposed renting the site from the council at a cost of £100 a year for 15 years.
Charlie Forrest, chairman of the Ellon and District Men’s Shed, said finding the right site for the shed locally had been like “trying to find a needle in a haystack”.
He added: “We scoured all over the Ellon area. We applied for this property in March 2014 and then there was a few hiccups and it looks like it is going to get through. At the present moment we only have a board of trustees.”
The group has been meeting in the council’s offices in Ellon’s Square since beginning and has so far raised £7,500 for the project.
They were inspired to establish the group after seeing the success of the Westhill Men’s Shed.
And Mr Forrest added there were already scores of people showing interest in the shed, which would be divided between a workshop for personal and community projects and a social area for locals.
Retired oil worker Mr Forrest, 67, added: “Westhill was basically the first one in Scotland, but there is over 1,000 in Australia. They are very fast growing men’s community groups. It is a thing that is lacking for men in general.
“It is aimed to get men back involved in society in some way. Nowadays a lot of people start suffering from depression and things like that, this can help in that way, hopefully because the men get something to look forward too, so he has got something in his life.”
He said the cost of kitting out the building’s interior after acquiring the site could cost as much as £70,000, but added: “We intend on doing a lot of the internal building ourselves, just now it is basically a big shed and that is it”.
Ritchie Johnson, the council’s head of communities, said the Ellon group would support “community wellbeing”, “health and mental health” and “inclusion and participation” in the area.
The Formatine area committee are being asked to move the application for an asset transfer to the implementation stage.