Author: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

How well do you know your neighbours? Enough to nod hello of a morning? To drop in for coffee, now and then? To help with shopping when it’s icy underfoot? Perhaps you wouldn’t recognise them at all. Most of us live surrounded by other people. But many of us still feel lonely, especially as we grow older. And, as we age, more of us need some support, whether that’s with everyday chores or in a crisis. What if we felt closer to those we live nearest to? If we were ready to help each other – and could spot when someone needs support? What if we all simply decided to be better neighbours? What would that look like?

This is the story of one woman’s bid to be a Good Neighbour. She asked herself: What can I do to make my neighbourhood a kinder place? The Good Neighbour lives in the kind of home many of us do. She’s passionate about helping others and that’s at the heart of her working life. She works hard. Her personal life has its ups and downs. She has some great friends, but they don’t all live close by. Most days, the people she sees are those who just happen to live next door. She noticed how simple acts, like taking in a parcel, began to connect people around her. Could this lead to something richer? A neighbour’s husband died. Could she help the widow through bereavement? People close to her struggled as they moved to the end of their lives. She believed there must be a better way.

The Good Neighbour didn’t know what she might do or where she would end up, but she wanted to give it a go. So JRF gave her a recorder and, from Easter Sunday to Halloween, she kept an audio-diary. Now we’ve written her observations up here. This isn’t a formal project. There was no budget and no plan, no objectives, no evaluation. It’s one person working things out as she goes along. We’ve changed the names and places to respect people’s privacy. But the story is a real one, told from the heart. It didn’t always go quite as the Good Neighbour expected. Read on to find out what she discovered hidden in the small matters of everyday life.

Author: James Trimble, Falkirk Herald

Community centres being run by members of the community could be the light at the end of a long dark tunnel of cuts and closures.

Proposals contained within Falkirk Community Trust’s latest business plan include closing Grangemouth Town Hall, Hallglen Sports Centre and Denny Football Centre and cutting opening hours at Callendar House and Grangemouth Sports Centre crèche in a bid to cut costs and make savings.

The plans will be going before Falkirk Council for its approval, but residents and community groups have already voiced their anger at the moves, which many see as extreme.

Falkirk Community Trust was set up four years ago to run cultural, sporting and leisure services on behalf of the council and is now having to make some difficult decisions due to its current financial situation and the fact it failed to hit nearly half of its performance targets last year.

However, another group was set up last year in Grangemouth – without much fanfare or publicity – and may be one of the organisations which could provide the blueprint for the way community facilities will be run in the future.

Bowhouse Community Association took a run down and tired Bowhouse Community Centre and, with the help of £250,000 investment from Falkirk Council, turned it around to make it a vital, well used facility.

Local hairdresser and businesswoman Michaela Tripney became chairperson of the newly formed association last September and immediately got the ball rolling.

She said: “I was asked to have a wee look at things. I grew up six doors away from the centre and would play there as a wee girl, but the place was in quite a state of disrepair and the accounts were not up to date – it needed to be taken into the 21st Century.

“I invited people to come along and join the association committee. We now have a strong committee made up of residents and representatives of groups who use the centre. We meet every month and everyone has their own roles and responsibilities.”

Thanks to a major refurbishment programme, the centre now boasts new toilets, disabled facilities, new ceilings, a lighting system for the stage, audio loop technology and wi-fi.

The centre is now used from early in the mornings, by a regular fitness class, right into the night with social dancing and other groups, including slimming classes, a childminding group with 40 youngsters, table tennis and football sessions for children.

It is also becoming a popular venue to hold children’s birthday parties and a meeting place for everything from volunteer groups and migrant support organisations to local councillors holding their regular surgeries.

The successful turnaround of Bowhouse Community Centre and its growing popularity has not gone unnoticed by other bodies in the town. Michaela said representatives of under threat Grangemouth Town Hall had invited her to a meeting being held to discuss possible ways forward for the historic building.

She said: “They said they saw the success we have had with Bowhouse Community Centre and wanted to hear how we did it and what business model we used.”

Visit www.bowhousecommunitycentre.com for more information.

The success a group of local volunteers has enjoyed running Bowhouse Community Centre is something which can be applied elsewhere for various facilities.

News of the proposed closure of Grangemouth Town Hall and other Falkirk Community Trust-run premises have spurred a number of individuals and groups into action, with several public meetings being held to discuss the issue.

The threat posed to the town hall may in fact be the driving force behind the reformation of Grangemouth Community Council and the incentive people need to question the community trust approach and ask is there a better way of doing things.

While people are getting active to protect their local facilities, members of Bowhouse Community Association continue to do their utmost to run their local community centre because they know how important it is.

Andy Daly, secretary, said: “It’s now an excellent facility, run by the community for the community.”

The association, which has charitable status, earns its money from the hall lets it receives from the groups which use it and all profits are poured back into the running, maintenance and improvement of the premises.

Chairperson Michaela Tripney said: “Everyone on the committee is a volunteer, there is no financial gain in this for anyone.”

Irene Daly, lettings officer, said: “Facilities like this bring and keep people together and are a vital resource in the heart of the community. We were lucky because we got a good team together on the association from the very start.

“Communication is important too – you have to provide a reliable contact which people can get in touch with at all times if they want to use the hall.”

The centre reached its 50th anniversary in November and the association is looking to celebrate the milestone with an event planned early next spring. There are also future plans for a car park, garden and a community cafe.

Author: BIG Lottery in Scotland

This booklet explains the key features of our grant-making approach in Scotland, and the new funding being introduced from November 2015.

Our mission is to help communities and people most in need and we believe that by being people-led, strengths-based and connected, the activity we fund can help us achieve this mission and address inequality in Scotland.

Over the next five years we will be changing our funding approach as we strive to be a well-connected funder that cares about the places we work. We want to respond quickly and flexibly to opportunities to fund activity that makes a big difference to people and communities across Scotland.

We also want the language we use to reflect a more people-led and strengths-based approach. So for example, in our materials we’re asking about ‘people taking part in activity’ rather than ‘project beneficiaries’, and about the strengths people have rather than their needs.

Read full text here

Author: DEMOS

A new report from cross-party think tank Demos calls on the Government to support local authorities to do more to tackle the UK’s housing crisis, by encouraging community-led developments and pushing for greater transparency in decision-making.

The report, Community Builders, finds many councils – particularly those in rural areas – are dragging their heels on approving new planning applications –including some councils where a third of all proposals for large developments are being rejected in the face of significant population growth.

Rather than arguing for Whitehall to step in to drive projects forward, the report argues that it is only through empowering communities to be more involved in housing projects that sufficient homes will be built – with the support of local residents.

Developed following extensive qualitative and quantitative analysis – including focus groups with residents throughout the country – Community Builders shows that concern for collective, community goods, such as local aesthetics, green spaces and community facilities are the primary drivers of opposition to development. Many participants in focus groups cited a lack of trust in the planning process, and a scepticism over whether local people would benefit from the availability of new housing, as their motivating factors in resisting new projects.

By contrast, the report finds that – when sufficiently democratic, transparent and inclusive in their structure – projects driven by community-led building schemes can help local residents to feel greater ownership over developments, and encourage them to support new house-building. They are also able to ensure they meet local needs, for example, by ensuring the homes provided are genuinely affordable for local people.

The report found that the legitimacy these groups have in the eyes of residents and councils means community-led projects are more likely to gain planning permission.  However, they are also slower to be approved, suggesting that the sector could benefit from more professional expertise and greater understanding of their benefits amongst council officers.

Overall, urban districts were found to approve the highest proportion of planning applications, and more quickly than their rural counterparts, but local hostilities towards house-building are stopping many much-needed developments from even reaching application stage. And of the modest number reaching councils, almost 20% of applications are being rejected nationally, in the face of one of the most acute housing shortages in our history.

Analysing local planning data between 2010 and 2015, Demos finds:

•        Local authorities in the North of England are granting a much higher proportion of planning applications for large housing developments than those in the South (89% in the North East compared to 75% in the South East) – where the housing market is suffering most from a shortage of supply.

•        Northern councils are also more likely to meet the 13-week target for making decisions, compared to those in the South (68% in the North East compared to 57% and 59% in the South West and East).

•        Metropolitan districts are approving a far higher percentage of residential applications (90%) than shire districts (78%) – although London boroughs (81%) were found to be performing relatively poorly.

Overall, Copeland, Gloucester, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Oldham, Wigan, Scarborough, Halton, Corby and Westminster were found to have approved the highest percentage of planning applications – with Copeland approving 100% of 40 applications. This compares to Maldon, where only 25% of 64 applications were approved.

When factoring in positive decisions, the decision timeframe and the overall number of applications, Scarborough came out on top, having granted 96% of 120 applications, almost 80% of which were granted within the 13-week time target. This was followed by Westminster, Barnsley, Birmingham, Newcastle and Plymouth. By contrast, Croydon Council in London was found to have granted only 63% of developments – despite its population estimated to have grown by over 10,000 people over the same period.

To encourage greater local support for house-building, across both metropolitan and rural districts, Community Builders recommends:

•        Local authorities should be supported to create hyper-local housing waiting lists, to ensure people in need in the immediate vicinity are prioritised for housing;

•        Community-led groups should have formal, democratic decision-making structures that enable the wider community to participate – such as through community shared schemes;

•        Those groups that have gained support among local residents should become more involved in the planning process, as their visible participation, such as being formally named as the applicant for planning permission, can help to generate active support among residents;

•        The Government should ensure that all community-led schemes are exempted from the extension of Right-to-Buy; and

•        Councils should ensure they have formal policies in place that encourage planning decisions to be made in consideration of the wider benefits of community-led schemes.

Commenting on the report, its author, Charlie Cadywould, said:

“The shortage of affordable housing is one of the biggest problems we face. It’s good to see that the Chancellor is committed to building more homes, with last month’s doubling of the housing budget. However, money is just one side of the equation. We also have to find a place to build all these new homes. At the moment, the Government’s will to get building is rarely matched by local residents who will be most directly impacted by new developments. By engaging local residents, by being democratic and acting as a credible, representative voice, community-led groups can ensure new developments match the needs and desires of local residents, and in doing so turn concern for the community into active support for more local housing.”

Gary Hartin, Programme Manager from the Nationwide Foundation, said:

“The UK faces a serious and growing housing shortage. This is adversely affecting people on lower incomes who are struggling to access decent homes which they can afford, especially when they want to remain living in their local community.  It is our desire for this research to lead to greater confidence from both local and central government in the value and contribution of community-led housing. The report also makes the case for community-led groups to take a more visible role in engaging local communities so that the benefits of housing developments to existing residents are more widely understood and considered.”

 Lydia Ragoonanan, Nesta

In the last week of September we brought together parks, social enterprise and local authority innovators to consider the environment our public parks might operate in at 2050. 

One scenario imagined the uses, upkeep and improvement of our public parks shaped through negotiations between groups who use parks. People who like football might agree to maintain all the grass areas in exchange for use of pitches at preferred times.  Dog walkers and picnickers might agree to take care of the waste pick up in so they could do the activies they enjoy in the park.

This idea resonated with me because it sets out a different relationship and power structure for our public services.  The approach imagines a different kind of democratic engagement than many local authorities are geared up for at present.  It emphasises the role people play as partners at all stages in service development and delivery.

Shifting power structures

Back in the real world, we are seeing the benefits of approaching city challenges in a more collective way.  Unfortunately, we are also observing the fall out when traditional command and control models of local authority governance are carried out.

Few examples could illustrate the point more starkly than the case studies covered in Harry Wallop’s recent article on parks funding losses in the Sunday Telegraph.  Liverpool is just one of many authorities seriously considering selling off some of their parks to plug an increasing gulf in funds. 

The situation is acute and the decisions to be made are painful.  

Within my own experience in leading the Rethinking Parks programme here at Nesta, some local authorities not involved directly with our programme are searching for a suite of options to address funding gaps first ahead of any meaningful conversation with people and communities affected. 

Yet, people are no longer the mere recipients of services local authorities deliver so it follows they should not be left out of the decision making process when times are as pressing as this.

We assist in prioritising investment (e.g. in roads repair through apps like FitMyStreet), we help improve services through volunteering in programmes like Helping in Hospitals or Cities of Service.  We are also seeing services delivered together by social enterprises such as Keats Community Library, Sunnyside Rural Trust and the Heeley Development Trust.  It follows then that the relationship we have with our local authorities ought to change too. 

Bring people in rather than shut them out

The Heritage Lottery Fund’s State of UK Public Parks report last year highlighted that many authorities are raising fees as a way to help close the gap in costs and funds. The real improvement though lies in moving away from a user-pays mentality and towards a user-collaborates philosophy. 

The best of our public institutions are already doing this. They are giving a new sense of agency to people and the role they can have in shaping our public services because they are involving them differently, sincerely and at all stages of the process. 

One example is the creation of the Park Hack Innovators, a group of creative and engaged businesses in Shoreditch, London.  The Park Hackers work together with Groundwork London and London Borough of Hackney to imagine and develop improvements for the local squares of the area.  Rather than ideas being developed in-house by the authority and then leading to formal consultation with affected communities, Hackney has been listening without pre-formed views on what shape new services or parks uses might take.  They’ve then drawn on this network to help develop improvements together. 

In Burnley, the Borough Council are developing stronger networks between their staff and volunteers across their town parks. Staff and volunteers work together across Burnley’s parks. Social enterprise Offshoots supports people working in the park providing wood coppicing, bee keeping and permaculture knowledge. In exchange Offshoots is set to receive income from pollination services and harvesting of borage flowers to turn into starflower oil. 

We can learn from good example in other countries too. In Reykjavik, people can submit ideas to improve city services through the council’s Better Reykjavik website. In my native New Zealand, Christchurch’s Gap Filler project works with the council’s support to develop temporary creative spaces for play, gathering, entertainment and commerce; all on the premise that great ideas can come from anywhere.

The common thread across these approaches is an attitude that leaves ego at the door and isn’t threatened by people having a more direct and ongoing say in how their services are run than a four-year election cycle allows.  People are partners not passive recipients.

This shift isn’t an intuitive or easy one for many authorities under intense financial pressure. But the gains in getting people involved early and often in solving challenges might be one of the keys to our local authorities riding through these tough times.

– See more at: Nesta

Michael Gray, Common Space

A PRIVATE LAW FIRM has fulfilled the fears of land reform campaigners that legal threats are being used as a barrier to the redistribution of land ownership in Scotland.

Brodies LLP, an influential law firm invested in representing property holders, claims that legislation is “certain or very likely to interfere with the property rights”, meaning clients could threaten legal action against the current Land Reform Bill under the European Convention of Human Rights, Article 1 Protocol 1.

The threat is included in the firm’s submission to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment (RACCE) committee, which is currently preparing its report before the Bill is presented to parliament.

The Bill, which campaigners say does not go far enough to tackle Scotland’s concentration of land ownership, has been condemned by representatives ofScotland’s vast land holders – 432 of which own 50 per cent of total private land in Scotland.

Brodies, in its evidence, stated: “A large number of the policies set out in the Bill (or which could be introduced in secondary legislation under one of the many regulation-making powers) are certain or very likely to interfere with the property rights protected under Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights. For some of those policies, it is not at all clear that the interference can be justified as lawful.”

On that basis the firm claims the Bill proposes to “go further than is likely to be necessary”.

Previously, land reform legislation was diluted after a lengthy legal battle, when billionaire landowner Alastair Salvesen eventually won a legal notice to evict tenant Andrew Riddell.

Riddell, whose family has farmed the land in East Lothian for over 100 years, took his own life on the eve of his eviction.

In September campaigners expressed fears that Conservative government lawyers were holding back land reform proposals due to potential legal threats.

RACCE committee chair Rob Gibson MSP said groups seeking a legal challenge would be “rubbing their hands with glee” over the bill: “They’re the ones who call the shoots – nothing is surer than that this will end up in the courts.”

However, Malcolm Combe – a lecturer in law at Aberdeen University – later told CommonSpace it was possible to take action for land reform and beat any legal challenges.

Campaigners including journalist Lesley Riddoch and the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association have criticised those seeking to undermine the bill, and have called on the Scottish Government to fight any legal case.

Brodies was featured in a recent report on insider Scottish lobbyists. Its own report celebrates that the firm has delayed Scottish Parliament legislation in the courts, drafted amendments to proposed laws, and taken legal action “where that is the only way to protect our clients’ interests”.

Land reform expert Andy Wightman, commenting on the Brodies evidence, told CommonSpace: “Of course many measures interfere with property rights – this wouldn’t be land reform if they didn’t. The key question is whether they are in the public interest and, in particular, what other human rights might be being upheld as a consequence. This is always a matter of judgement.”

In the Salvesen vs Riddell case of 2012 the Scottish Court of Session, sitting under Lord Brian Gill, sided with the human rights of the landowner over the tenant.

This undermined part of the Agricultural Holdings Act 2003 passed by the Scottish Parliament, which intended to improve the status of tenant farmers as part of land reform proposals.

However, a human rights legal case based on the right to private property is not absolute.

Professor Alan Miller, chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, explained to CommonSpace the various sources of balanced rights that are considered under the convention.

Miller explained: “The European Convention on Human Rights is often cited in debates about land reform in Scotland. This is because it includes the right to ‘peaceful enjoyment of possessions’, sometimes referred to as the right to property (Article 1 of Protocol 1). This right is not absolute – it can be interfered with where that would be in accordance with the law, in the public interest and proportionate. The state’s right to control use of property is expressly recognised in the text of Article 1.

“The question for debate is how to strike a fair balance between the wider public interest and an individual property owner’s rights. Here, the broader international human rights framework provides important guidance. Economic, social and cultural rights such as the right to an adequate standard of living, housing, food, decent work and health are contained in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Governments have a duty to use as many of the resources available to them as possible, to make progress towards making these rights a reality for everyone.

“In this context, land can be seen as a national asset – part of the resources available to realise everyone’s rights. Of course that does not mean that all responsible landowners should be dispossessed, but nor does it mean that a government is powerless to act if land can be put to better use.”

Given the previous 2003 decision, there remains fears that legal threats can stifle attempts to reform ownership.

Chair of the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association Angus McCall has said that government and MSPs have been “held to ransom by lawyers” over farming rights following the 2003 case.

Simon Brooke, organiser of the Birnam Land Reform Conference, holds similar concerns.

He told CommonSpace: “I don’t think that in the end, Brodies would win a human rights case against land reform. I certainly don’t think they should win. I think the government should take them on, should say, ‘Fine, laddies. Let’s see who has the deepest pockets.’ But, they might win – certainly if the UK Supreme Court has any say in the matter.

“If they did win, I still don’t think that should be the end of the issue. If the European Convention on Human Rights turns out to be just another mechanism for fossilising the old order – for protecting the interests of the rich against the interests of the poor – then it’s time to rip it up and start again.”

The campaign for land reform has surged in recent months as campaign groups said the draft Land Reform Bill did not go far enough to tackle concentrations of ownership, provide transparency on who owns land, preventing ownership in tax havens, taking action on derelict land in urban areas or providing theright to buy to tenant farmers.

The threatened eviction of farmer Andrew Stoddart led to 19,000 people signing a petition calling for government intervention.

The Scottish Green Party and Scottish Labour both called on the government to go further and RACCE committee members indicated support for further amendments to strengthen the bill.

SNP members then rebelled against the policy of their leadership at the party’s conference, in an unprecedented call for more radical action on land reform.

The RACCE committee, which has now received all evidence at stage one of the Bill, is preparing its report on the draft Land Reform Bill.

Following the report’s publication in December, the bill will be debated in parliament in the new year.

by Airdrie Saving Bank

INDEPENDENT LOCAL BANKS WORKING FOR, CONTROLLED BY AND ANSWERABLE TO THEIR CUSTOMERS

This is not a new idea. This is a very old idea. This is a good idea, updated for today’s world and learning from yesterday’s mistakes. We want to create a UK-wide network of customer-owned, regional banks to serve the every day financial needs of ordinary people, local community groups, and small and medium sized companies.

Local savings used to make local loans – creating and storing wealth in each region, held in trust for the benefit of the current members and those that come after them.

to see a short animation which illustrates this idea click here

James Mitchell, Jonathan Sher, Dr Sue Northrop, Dr Katherine Trebek, John Carnochan.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror  and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

James 1:22-25.

The Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee is once more considering prevention. It has issued a series of questions starting with,

Why has the progress of reform proposed by the Christie Commission been so slow?

This is a good question and one that deserves a response. It goes on to ask about the varied and enduring impediments standing in the way of its own express desire for ‘the decisive, large scale shift to prevention’.

The Committee’s members might do well to start by asking themselves not what they have heard and said, but rather what they have done. A large part of the answer about the barriers to transformational change and sustained progress is to be found therein.

While the Committee’s work in this area over some time has been commendable, its members operate in a series of discrete arenas. Woodrow Wilson’s comment made during his more distinguished career as a student of politics (rather than his less distinguished period as a politician) comes to mind:

Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work.[1]

Some of the best work of our Parliamentarians is done collaboratively in committee. But, members do not always live up to this in the Chamber and outside Parliament. Even within the Finance Committee’s own deliberations and decisions, e.g. in relation to its scrutiny of each year’s draft Scottish budget, it is not evident that preventative spending is the real priority. We need consistent leadership from Members inside and outside Committee.

For every committee report on prevention, there are countless statements in the Chamber and beyond that undermine Christie principles. Manifesto commitments, party conference speeches and news releases focus on promises that undermine the ‘radical shift towards preventative public spending’ that was called for by the Christie Commission.[2]

A case can always be made for the ever-popular commitments to spend more in easily understood and seemingly desirable ways, such as 1000 more police officers or nurses, more A&E staff, a reduction in waiting times – not least in the knowledge that they might attract a helpful headline. But what crucial problems these headline grabbers will actually prevent, whether they are the best ways of allocating resources toward preventative spending has been far from clear.

This brings us to a recommendation for the Finance Committee. First, the Committee must be explicit about what ‘counts’ as prevention. That is because the great majority of existing governmental actions and expenditures can be rebranded as having some type and level of prevention element to them. For example, it can legitimately be argued that spending extraordinary amounts of money on residential care prevents further maltreatment at home. But, the logic of the Christie Commission and the Finance Committee is that priority should be given to keep such maltreatment from happening in the first place. Thus, the Committee should be clear and consistent in placing primary prevention front and centre. This has not yet happened in the Committee Room, The Chamber or the actual behavior of Scotland’s public sector.

It should also address how prevention should be counted. Prevention disappears amongst the myriad of KPIs and targets. The Committee should encourage all public bodies to consider and report on how they contribute to primary prevention and to report on how prevention fits with existing targets, priorities and agendas. Each organization should take key documents and performance indicators and critically consider line-by-line whether, if at all, they contribute to a ‘radical shift to prevention’. It is always worth remembering that not all prevention is created equal; so, there must be rigorous attention paid to the evidence about whether the good intentions here are matched by good (genuinely preventative) results.

The Finance Committee has the potential to be an influential committee in the Scottish Parliament. It should begin to judge itself by what it does. That then gives the moral authority to judge the rest of Scotland’s public bodies by what they do, too. Committee members should also trawl through their own speeches and statements (and those of their parties) and consider where primary prevention truly sits right now – and where it will sit in the forthcoming manifestos for the 2016 Scottish elections and the 2017 local elections.

There is a tremendous opportunity for the Committee’s Members to lead by example individually and collectively. As the passage from John I:25 reminds us, the challenge and the goal is: ‘ . . . not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—[then] they will be blessed in what they do’.

[1] Wilson, Woodrow (1981 [1885]), Congressional Government, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, p.69.

[2] Report of the Commission on the Delivery of Public Services, 2011, p.x.

Scottish Rural Action

Scottish Rural Action announced yesterday at the rural summit that the bid to host the second Rural Parliament for Scotland has been won by Brechin, Angus and will take place on 6th-8th October 2016.

It is anticipated that over 400 people will gather in Brechin for the three-day event which will develop and agree an action plan for rural Scotland as well as celebrating the strengths and achievements of rural communities.

Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead said “Rural Parliaments have the potential to transform rural society, helping people to be more empowered, more resilient and better connected. Much has been achieved since Scotland’s first Rural Parliament in Oban last November and it is crucial that we maintain momentum. That is why I am delighted to confirm that the second meeting of Scotland’s Rural Parliament will take place in Brechin late next year, and I urge everyone across rural Scotland to get involved between now and then.”

On winning the bid to host the event out of nineteen applicants, which was submitted and led by Angus Council, the newly appointed Chair of the local liaison group for the event Derek Harper said “It’s a real privilege and honour that Brechin was chosen as host for the next SRP. Excitement and enthusiasm has been growing since we got the news. To deliver a prestigious event in our new community campus personally fills me with great pride and delivers a huge boost to our local economy. This a great opportunity for Brechin and Angus to shine and we look forward to welcoming delegates from all over Scotland next October.”

The Rural Parliament meets every two years and brings together the people of rural Scotland and policy makers to address rural issues. A series of smaller events are planned across Scotland in the run up to the Rural Parliament which will feed into the discussion and debate at the event itself. Caledonian MacBrayne will be sponsoring both the national event and the smaller events held on islands off the west coast of Scotland.

Scottish Rural Action (SRA) is the organisation charged by Scottish Government with developing the Rural Parliament. Co-Chair John Hutchison said “The Scottish Rural Parliament will be a community-led process culminating in an event every two years. Our aim is to give rural communities the opportunity to present a collective voice to decision-makers and to develop their own plans and activities. Encouraging discussion and debate over the next few months, leading up to November, will be an important part of that. We are very pleased that Brechin will be hosting the national event and look forward to working with CalMac and other sponsors again in 2016.”

The host town and the surrounding area of Angus will have an opportunity to showcase their finest local produce, talent, community and enterprise projects to the delegates. Scottish Rural Action have identified the new community campus in Brechin as the primary venue for the event.

Award-winning ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac), has been confirmed as the primary commercial sponsor for the 2016 event following on from their sponsorship in 2014. CalMac has a long established record of supporting community-based events across its network including the Royal National Mòd, the Stornoway-based Hebridean Celtic ( HebCelt ) and Tiree Music festivals, the Colonsay Book Festival and Cumbrae Country and Western Festival.

Martin Dorchester, managing director of CalMac Ferries, said “We were delighted to be able to sponsor the first ever rural parliament in Oban and had no hesitation in offering to support the event in 2016. The 2014 event was a great success, giving us an unrivalled opportunity to engage with a wide cross-section of people who share our empathy for rural and remote communities, as well as highlight our desire to work with others to address the challenges these communities face.”

ACTIVISTS examining the possibility of a community buyout of a town centre development in Alexandria held a public meeting recently outlining their aims.

The move by the recently formed Three Towns Trust to buy the Mitchell Way development comes amid concerns by some local residents that any commercial developer buying it could install retail outlet stores which show little “inspiration or aspiration for the local area”.

A not-for-profit company would be set up and following a ny successful buyout, the trust is hopes ing to build a development that addresses the needs of the community and benefits and boosts the economy of the Vale of Leven and West Dunbartonshire.

The meeting was well attended and Three Towns Trust members are now looking for other members of the business community in the area to get on board and help them reach their aims.

Bonhill community activist Janice Ross, who set up the group, said: “We are looking to build a specialised group of volunteers who can move things forward. We need people from the business community such as lawyers, accountants and town planners.

“Anyone with special skills who thinks they could help us reach our goals or businesses who will benefit from the improvement in the local community where they are based – they can give something back by donating some of their time to help us through the processes.”

The Three Towns Trust also has a long-term vision to entice tourists heading to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs into town centres and villages by making them more attractive and viable shopping areas.

The history and background of each town would be exploited with the creation of a Three Towns Tourist Trail. There has been an element of confusion arising over the trail with some onlookers thinking the term meant a walkway.

Janice explained: “It is a tourist trail from Clydebank down to Balloch and Gartocharn. I envisage this to be similar to the Clyde Valley route where people drive down the Clyde Valley and visit the garden centres and ultimately head to New Lanark.”

The tourist trail would run along the natural geography of the land from Clydebank to Old Kilpatrick, Bowling and into Dumbarton where the River Clyde diverts into following the River Leven along to Renton, Alexandria and into Balloch and further inland the village of Gartocharn.

In relation to the local authority plans, the closing date for the it is thought the successful bidder for the town centre site bidder id December 14 will be appointed within the next six months, with West Dunbartonshire Council forecasting that work will have started to overhaul the Mitchell Way site by spring 2017.  

As previously reported, council documents state the 3.89-acre redevelopment site will comprise of “a food and non-food retail scheme, suitably integrated within the existing town centre to enable an enhanced public realm and retail experience for the resident catchment population”.

The group has set up a Facebook page where anyone interested in helping can contact them.