Tag: development trusts

Edinburgh project receives backing from the Scottish Land Fund

Gracemount Mansion Development Trust has been given £167,340 to buy Gracemount Mansion in the south of Edinburgh in order to redevelop and reopen the asset as a community hub.

The grant is amongst 11 totalling £1,833,622 that have been given to communities across the country in the latest round of awards by the Scottish Land Fund.

The Scottish Land Fund reopened to applications in April 2021. The programme is funded by the Scottish Government and delivered in partnership by the National Lottery Community Fund and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), both of which have extensive experience of helping communities to acquire and develop their assets for over a decade.

Mairi Gougeon, Cabinet Secretary, Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, said: “Over one million people across Scotland now live in communities where assets have been acquired with funding from the Scottish Land Fund. This is a remarkable milestone and displays just how large an impact the Fund has had on communities across Scotland.

“Community ownership is an effective way to revitalise local areas and improve the lives of residents . The latest recipients are no exception and I know that their projects will bring countless benefits to their communities.

“I’d like to congratulate the groups involved and I look forward to seeing their projects, and their communities flourish as a result.”

Lindsay Aitken, Chair, Gracemount Mansion Development Trust, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded funding from the Scottish Land Fund. The funds awarded will enable GMDT to purchase Gracemount House and surrounding grounds from the City of Edinburgh Council, as well as a significant contribution towards the essential works required to partially reopen Gracemount Mansion as a community hub in 2025.

“With further funding, the full reopening of Gracemount House will bring back a much needed and desired facility and resource for the community and beyond.

“We must say a huge thanks to the Project team who have progressed the project, GMDT charity Trustees and Members, Friends of the Mansion, the local community, stakeholders, CEC, and of course to the SLF and National Lottery for the funding.”

Cara Gillespie, Scottish Land Fund Committee Chair said: “Like all the groups that have been successful in this round of funding, Gracemount Mansion Development Trust will use their awards to make purchases that will directly improve the lives of people in their community.

“Targeted funding such as this gets right to the heart of local issues.”

And Sandra Holmes, Head of Community Assets at HIE, said: “The successful projects announced today across Scotland are all great examples of people taking control of local resources for the long-term benefit of their communities.

“Through the purchase of land and properties including a community hall and a former church, groups will be in a position to deliver economic, social and environmental benefits to the community. These latest awards will further strengthen the sense of community and empowerment.”

“All these projects announced today will help retain the population, attract visitors and create jobs. Ownership will give the community groups greater control over important assets that will reap rewards for people now and for generations to come. We wish all the successful groups the very best in their new ventures.”

Other groups receiving funding are:

Wigtown and Bladnoch Community Initiative

Award – £88,474

Wigtown and Bladnoch Community Initiative (WBCI) will acquire a former Church Hall in Wigtown. The acquisition will bring social benefits by providing space for meetings, classes and skill sharing workshops, as well as exercise, entertainment, and health & wellbeing activities. Alongside the social benefits, opportunities for digital access will also enable employment and enterprise skills.

Tighnabruaich District Development Trust

Award – £61,443

Tighnabruaich District Development Trust (TDDT) will purchase 2 retail units in Tighnabruaich, Argyll and Bute. The group will continue to use one of the units as the location for their heritage centre and will rent out the second unit.

Cockenzie House and Garden

Award – £227,400

Cockenzie House and Gardens will acquire the Cockenzie & Port Seton Old Parish Church and Hall, in East Lothian, and will use the asset as a community hub, offering community space for groups to meet, social activities, pop-up hospitality and childcare provision.

Dunvegan Community Trust SCIO

Award – £361,096

Dunvegan Development Trust will acquire a building known locally as the ‘Gaeltec Building’ in Dunvegan, Syke from a private business. The group will develop the asset into an energy efficient, multi-use commercial and community hub that includes office space, a gym and  childcare facilities to address a range of community needs in a remote, rural community.

Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre Development Trust

Award – £267,948

Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre Development Trust will purchase the Taversoe Hotel on Rousay, Orkney. The hotel is the only current hospitality venue on all three islands. The group will operate the asset as a hotel, pub,

restaurant and community space. This asset will serve as a year-round gathering place for the community that will assist in combating rural isolation.

Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre Development Trust

Award – £262,188

Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre Development Trust  will purchase a Manse in Rousay,Orkney from the Church of Scotland. They group will convert and renovate the asset into up to 3 separate housing units that will be used for affordable rent.

Toryglen Community Hall

Award – £171,272

Toryglen Community Hall (TCH) will acquire the building in Glasgow that they’ve occupied for 35 years. Community ownership will provide security enabling TCH to improve and extend the building thus, continuing to provide activities aimed at a range of groups.

Bailliefields Community Hub SCIO

Award – £27,500

Bailliefields Community Hub will purchase a small area of land adjacent to the boundary of their existing Community Hub. Acquisition will allow the group to extend existing walking/cycling routes and increase local walking access with a focus on active travel.

Raasay Development Trust

Award – £99,961

Raasay Development Trust will acquire an empty 2-bedroom house in Inverarish on the Isle of Raasay. The group will renovate the house to create affordable rented accommodation for the community.

North Yell Development Council

Award – £99,000

North Yell Development Council will acquire the units 3-4 at Sellafirth Business Park, North Yell, Shetland. The group will use the premises to provide a multi-use office, heritage, events and training space which will be used by local agencies, individuals and community groups.

Village Trust launches appeal to complete Pub purchase

Port Bannatyne residents will launch a community share offer next week, in what will be the last piece of the jigsaw that allows the village to complete the purchase of the Anchor Tavern and the former off-licence at 34 Marine Road which will become a flexible community hub space.

An information drop-in was held in the Port Hall last night.

Residents and supporters will be invited to buy shares in Port Bannatyne Development Trust, the Community Benefit Society (CBS) that will own the Anchor.

The Scottish Land Fund announced last month that they would provide the funds to purchase the building, subject to a successful community share offer to raise funds to cover renovations and working capital.

The shareholders will then control the CBS, on a one member one vote basis. The CBS’s rules have been designed to comply with Scottish Land Fund requirements, which include a majority of shareholders being resident in the village and a £25 minimum shareholding.

The majority of the funds raised will be spent on refurbishment. In particular the parts of the building which customers don’t normally see are in urgent need of attention, with vegetation now growing inside the building. The share offer aims to raise between £50K and £105K, with the extent of the renovations carried out dependent on the total raised, and priorities to be decided by the new CBS.

Jon Sear, Vice-chair of Port Bannatyne Development Trust said “We know £105,000 is a lot of money to try to raise for a small village like Port Bannatyne, but we are encouraged by the success of other communities, in particular Knoydart, whose pub Share Offer just raised twice this amount and had to be closed early, despite their smaller population.

“Our biggest challenge is that we can’t accept more shareholders from outside the Port Bannatyne area than live locally, so unless the number of applications from Port residents exceeds our expectations, we have no choice but to prioritise higher value applications from non-residents”.

After shares have been allocated to village residents, the Trust has committed to prioritising applications for £200 or more of shares from other island residents and second home owners, and applications for £1000 or more of shares from supporters wherever they are.

The society aims to pay investors 2% interest after year three and is applying to register for HMRC’s Social Investment Tax Relief scheme which offers attractive tax incentives for larger investors.

Right to Buy’s making a difference to local communities

New report highlights the benefits and challenges of Community Right to Buy 

DSCF1681

Community Right to Buy can make a real change to local communities, according to more than half of respondents who took part in a report published by the Scottish Government yesterday.

The report shows that over the last ten years, 206 community bodies have been established, 72 of which have successfully registered an interest in land under the Community Right to Buy.

Those surveyed identified a range of skills that had been improved in the community as a result of the Community Right to Buy process including legal knowledge, knowledge about the community and its aims, communications skills and organisational skills.

The report also showed that:

  • 57 per cent of respondents agreed that Community Right to Buy had stimulated ideas of how the community could use local land and buildings differently
  • 62 per cent of respondents agreed that Community Right to Buy had helped the community think more about the use of land and assets
  • 54 per cent of respondents agreed that the Community Right to Buy process helped understand the needs of the community

Speaking at Comrie Development Trust, Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Dr Aileen McLeod said:

“I’m delighted to be here at Comrie Development Trust, who successfully used the Community Right to Buy to purchase 90 acres at Cultybraggan Camp. Since purchasing the Camp in 2007 the Trust has worked closely with the local community to develop a range of activities including a community orchard, allotments, sports and recreational facilities and renewable energy projects.

“Comrie Development Trust is an example of the benefits the Community Right to Buy can bring to local communities. I welcome today’s report which looks at the impact of community right to buy legislation over the last 10 years, for the first time.

“The report identifies examples of successes by community groups purchasing land through Community Right to Buy and also identifies barriers that face community groups and what we can do to address this.

“This report will contribute to our on-going work on community ownership of land through the Community Empowerment legislation, as well as our proposals for communities to compulsory acquire land for their sustainable development through the Land Reform Bill.”

Chair of the Comrie Development Trust Board, Bill Thow said:

“Investment funds to achieve the community ownership of Cultybraggan Camp has already brought many benefits to the local area. The Trust is now looking to build on that foundation of ownership to generate significant investment funds back into the village community, both through its share offer and consultation events.”

The report comes as the Scottish Government awards £175,000 over the next three years to Community Land Scotland, to promote community ownership across the whole of Scotland.

Dr McLeod added: “As part of our commitment to encourage other groups to follow successful communities like Comrie, we have recently awarded Community Land Scotland a grant of £175.000 over the next three years, to promote community ownership across the whole of Scotland.

“This grant will also help to facilitate the exchange of information so that communities can learn from others experiences and successes. This is an important way to inspire communities to see the benefits of community land ownership, and to provide help and support through the community landownership journey.”

Chair of Community Land Scotland, Lorne MacLeod said:

“Community Land Scotland is delighted that the Scottish Government is recognising through this grant that our organisation and members have an important role to play over the coming years in helping promote and explain community ownership, in supporting communities to realise their ambitions to own land, and in strengthening the sector.

“We look forward to playing our part in this ever evolving story of how Scottish land is being owned and managed differently, by local communities, and contributing to a more sustainable future.”

The report can be found at: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/10/8581

Research findings are available here http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/10/9555

Granton on Sea seeks community support for Lottery bid

A Way Forward for Community Regeneration?

Peoples project

A local project which hopes to oversee the regeneration of Granton’s waterfront is asking the local community to support a bid for Lottery funding. 

Granton Improvement Society says, if successful, a lottery grant would be used to stage art work for a garden festival, employ a member of staff and take regeneration plans on to the next stage.

Granton Improvement Society administrator Ross McEwan explained: “GIS was invited to make an application to the BIG Lottery Peoples Project for an award of £50,000. The process involves joining the community blog that they had set up – we had to write a 500 word submission on the blog page together with three images.

“The shortlisting process will take into consideration comments made on the blog, so we are asking members to please make comments in as positive a way as possible, especially about what huge benefits would come to the community from the income generated and from the major new facilities in the area.”

In ‘Granton on Sea – A Way Forward for Community Regeneration’, their submission to the webpage, GIS say:

‘We held several public events with guest speakers, this has increased the membership from local people considerably and means the GIS is now the largest membership organisation in the area.

‘A new exhibition of the current project proposals and promotional material have proved to be a great success especially when attending events and for getting the project more visible in the local community and with City Councillors.

All of these new initiatives have helped in being commissioned by Scottish Government Regeneration Unit and DTAS/COSS to undertake an Asset Mapping exercise over the whole area we have chosen to work within.

The project will allow us to find out what the physical and social assets are of the area. As part of this we will identify the wider community need and aspirations, this information will lead to a community plan and strengthen the communities

Since the Granton Improvement Society was established in January 2013 the membership from local residents has gradually risen to just under 200, The management committee of 11 trustees is comprised of seven local residents and four who are just on the boundary of the EH4 & EH5 area that we have chosen to operate within.

If we were successful the new money would take the project to a stage where we would do small art interventions related to the garden festival in underused derelict green space, the focus of which is creative design, all will be for the community to undertake. We will show the health and wellbeing benefits of the outdoors and creative process.

As part of the new exhibition we have taken the design proposals to another more detailed stage in preparation for a future planning application in doing so it has brought the landowner to the table to negotiate the sale of the land.

New money would allow us to commission architects and energy consultants to explore the sustainability and environmental impact of the project. A model of the project will be commissioned something which is more accessible than architectural drawings. A more detailed financial impact study should prove the community benefit of the project locally and nationally.

A Social Hub: reaching out to a wider community base.

Sea containers will be bought and converted using local people gaining construction skills, this would be the studio space for the GIS, the local community could come and interact with the project and talk about needs and aspirations. This will inform the project.

It will allow us for the first time to employ a dedicated project worker and not rely upon volunteers all of the time, local people will gain skills, training and education.

More community events would be organised, creating greater community involvement and a more cohesive and resilient community.

All of these bigger initiatives will create a sense of community ownership, pride and care for the future when the project is realised. It will be owned by the community through large community consultation and participation.’

To make a comment on the Granton submission, go to 

https://l.facebook.com/l/cAQGDEGKxAQHdf8hPg9BMzmlg16PQ82Nm-dsg03LQxMt00g/https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.biglotteryfund.org.uk%2Fuk-wide%2Fscotland%2Fdefault.aspx

Ross added: “Go to top right of page ‘Not a member yet?’ and join. Just follow the instructions. After registering you are directed to a Welcome page. Go to the heading The Peoples’s Projects. On this page go to Search Blogs by ITV region – we are in STV East.

“Our blog is the fifth one in the list. Open the blog and and join the group at top right of the page then you should be able to begin commenting at the end of the blog in the comments box. We want as many of you as possible to do this!”

Communities: seize the day!

‘giving communities the power to make their own choices is one of the most effective ways to tackle poverty and address inequalities.’ – Local Government & Community Empowerment Minister Marco Biagi MSP

ian cooke

Development Trusts Association (DTA) Scotland, the national organisation for development trusts, says the introduction of the Community Empowerment Act presents communities across Scotland with an ideal chance to ‘seize the day’ as their rights and opportunities in relation to assets, land and participation increase.

Development Trusts, community groups and representatives who gathered for the Associations’ two-day Annual Conference in Inverness yesterday heard that there has never been a better time for community-led regeneration, as more and more communities look to take control of their future through the acquisition of assets.

Ian Cooke, Director of DTA Scotland (pictured) said: “The introduction of the Community Empowerment Act brings with it ground-breaking opportunities for communities across Scotland in the acquisition, development and management of land, buildings and other physical assets.

“Often driven by the need to save community services and iconic heritage assets, community groups have historically had to work against the odds and with minimum support to take on assets and services.

“However, now, more so than ever before, communities have an opportunity to stimulate sustainable growth and lasting change thanks to favourable policies like the Community Empowerment Act which encourage, support and help resource this kind of community-led activity.

“We would urge that anyone considering taking on an asset, however early the stage, gets in touch with the team at the Community Ownership Support Service to find out how they can help support the process.”

Under some of the notable provisions of the new Act, most of which are expected to come into effect in the summer of 2016, communities throughout Scotland will:

  • Have the right to request to purchase, lease, manage or use land and buildings belonging to local authorities, Scottish public bodies or Scottish Ministers;
  • Have extended Community Rights to Buy Land in Scotland incorporating both rural and urban settings through amends to the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, and;
  • Have the right to put forward their ideas for how services could be changed to improve outcomes for their community through a participation request. This could include community bodies taking on delivery of services.

In his Ministerial address at the DTAS Conference today, Minister for Local Government & Community Empowerment Marco Biagi MSP is expected to say: “These are remarkable times in Scotland to be an active citizen. We have almost unprecedented levels of participation and engagement from people in communities the length and breadth of the country and the Scottish Government wants to build on the enthusiasm that people have been showing and get them more involved in local decision making, so that we can release at a local level the energy that comes from employing those talents, and allowing communities to guide the changes and improvements that they want to see in their local areas.

“In June this year the Scottish Parliament passed the Community Empowerment Act, the focus of which was to put forward legislation that helps give communities the means and ability to greater control their futures. Communities in the driving seat, that is the aim of the Act.

“We want to go beyond consulting, go beyond engaging and get into the true participation and partnership that is the only way communities can be empowered. We know that giving communities the power to make their own choices is one of the most effective ways to tackle poverty and address inequalities.”

Also addressing conference today will be Rob Hoon, manager of the successful Out of the Blue arts and education trust based in Dalmeny Street.

Entitled ‘Assets, Enterprise & Creativity‘, DTA Scotland’s conference – the organisations’ twelfth – has brought together Scotland’s experts on community-led regeneration, along with the development trusts and community organisations and groups looking to deliver innovation and sustainable change on the ground.

Topping the agenda is ensuring that delegates are aware of the opportunities available to them as a result of the introduction of the new legislation.  Once again a sell-out, the Conference is providing an invaluable forum for the sharing of ideas, experience and good practice.