One of the many things to come out of the Glasgow Blasda event was an online map of community based food growing projects across the city. This is an attempt to pull this information together in one place to make it easier for people to find out what’s going on.

Click here to view map and to learn about all the food based projects in Glasgow.

Like any other local voluntary group, we rely on three key resources to function – namely voluntary `labour’, finance and organisation.  Everywhere but especially more deprived neighbourhoods where people tend to disengaged, its not funding that’s our biggest obstacle but getting people along to participate.  We’ve tried plenty but with only limited success    

As we strive to do more – planting trees, restoring flower and shrubs beds, picking litter – we look enviously at other groups and charities that seem to have volunteer labour to burn.   I’m referring to the practice of sponsored walks and runs, and increasingly more exotic long-range challenges.   These pure fundraising efforts have been around for a long time and both organisers and participants deserve credit for running them.    

What we would love to see is that the same energy invested in walks, runs could be effectively channelled into productive tasks to yield a dual benefit.  Especially since the general public is becoming rather tired of yet another sponsorship for the same old thing.    

There are so many tasks in our communities that need done and can be organised almost as easily as a walk.  A community litterpick or planting, maybe even a garden tidy or houseclean for older households.   Recent evidence highlights the importance of such civic contributions in more deprived areas.

If fundraisers don’t want this additional hassle, then come and speak to groups like us.  Since we’re short of local volunteers, our group gains great benefit from working with other voluntary groups.  We have local projects, we can supply sites, materials, plant,  tools, even insurance, etc – what we’re most short of is labour.    We can easily set up a half-day or day programme in the our area to plant, tend community woodland, pick litter without any cost to the partner group.  

The fundraiser can raise sponsorship not on miles walked or run but using trees planted, bags or litter collected and keep 100% of what’s collected (since we provide all inputs).  The work can be great fundraiser while ALSO leaving a positive impact on the ground.   

Let’s get moving and harness rather than dissipate these well-meaning energies.

A. Armstrong. Secretary CLEAR clearfife@aol.com.

Gerry Hassan, Scotsman

Scottish devolution was always going to produce centralisation, such as the Procurement Reform Bill, along with single police and fire forces, and at the same time the rhetoric of change seen in the current Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill.

It is more than a year since the publication of the Christie Commission on public sector reform and as financial circumstances tighten, never has the time been more ripe for radical reform.

One approach is already on offer: the English marketisation route beloved by Andrew Lansley when he was Health Secretary; an alternative is the Scottish attitude of emphasising professional interests, integrated services and equity.

Yet while Scots professionals and politicians universally baulk at the idea of free schools, academies and foundation hospitals, they have to acknowledge that they tap into a wider public agenda than just that of marketisation and outsourcing.

Instead, they address people’s desire for more of a say, for personalisation, diversity and 
choice, if not for the full “choice” agenda of competition. And this is where the Left, across the UK, and the Scottish consensus need to respond more imaginatively and less cautiously.

There is a disconnect in Scotland over public services as well as our wider society. Only 22 per cent of respondents in the recent Scottish Household Survey said they felt that they could influence local decisions; 36 per cent wanted to have a greater involvement; and only 23 per cent thought their local council was good at listening.

Scots are going to have to prepare for what is going to be a public sector revolution. This is going to come about because of peoples’ greater demands for having a say, being treated with respect, growing expectations and demographic changes.

The old Fordist systems of centralisation and standardisation cannot deliver these. And yet for 
all the pretences, this is what still drives the dominant ethos in much of our public services. Old-fashioned, or new-style, social democracy 
thinks this way; trade union protection is the same: and even 
the apostles of the Right conform to this with their contracting-out culture and pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) rules, creating new vested interests such as G4S, Atos and Serco, which are even more unaccountable than public services. 

Government already talks much of the language of decentralism and populism, of “participatory budgeting”, “community rights” and “community compulsory purchase” in the Community Empowerment Bill for example. It does so without the philosophy of centralisation being checked, or any emerging new set of decentralist values, which recognise the need for government to have the confidence to “let go”.

Scotland has been centralising for a long time. The 1940s welfare state advanced and ennobled most Scots lives, but it removed lots of local arrangements in the name of defeating ill-health and poverty. The 1973 local government reorganisation abolished a mosaic of ancient burghs and town councils while breaking the local link many communities had with their common good funds. 

Then the Tory gerrymandering of 1995 abolished the regional tier of local government, and halved the number of councils. The result is that whereas Scotland had more than 200 councils in the 1940s, today it has a mere 32, producing one of the most centralised, standardised countries in all Western Europe.

To put a halt to this isn’t to return to some patrician golden era of local government. What is required is a different path, philosophy and practice for public services and the public realm, rather than marketisation or the conservative inertia of much of present day Scotland.

A Self-Government Bill could be Scotland’s answer to free schools and academies, drawing on 1980s examples of decentralisation such as Walsall, Sheffield and the GLC.

Two options are available. The first is to offer a facilitative framework to local communities and public bodies to allow them to become self-governing; the second would be a comprehensive nationwide decentralisation.

The first carries with it objections that only the affluent, prosperous and confident middle classes will seize the “means of production”, so to speak. The second, that it would force places and organisations to govern themselves when they don’t currently have the capacity and resources to do so.

There are also practical considerations. One is that it would break apart systems of redistribution that central government has spent years developing. 

Yet we know that redistribution isn’t very effective, that middle class people gain most from public services, and all this would actually aid a culture of transparency and empowerment where we could “follow the money” through the system.

Another issue would be defining communities and public agencies that could become self-governing. There would be problems with boundaries, and a particular challenge for public bodies would concern governance and who could control them: workers, consumers or people living in their vicinity, or a mix of these groups.

This is a debate that has to be started in Scotland and the UK. Otherwise what we are effectively saying is that only champions of reform are the new vested interests. And that is a marker we should not easily give them. 

Scotland has barely begun its democratic revolution. We have a parliament and 129 MSPs but we have not begun to democratise society or blow the cobwebs and dust away from much of public Scotland.

Such an approach would be devolution morphing into self-government and self-determination. Strangely, it is an approach that the early days of both Labour and SNP have much sympathy with, the former with its guild socialist roots, and the latter, with its localism and suspicion of institutional Scotland.

Public services and local authorities have to be owned by “the public” and “the locale” and to do that we have to move away from a mix of centralisation and standardisation. 

One-size-fits-all isn’t good enough. Nor is a parliament shifting from London to Edinburgh enough democracy. Scotland needs a long overdue democratic revolution.

Scotland’s town centres are changing.  We need to ensure they are equipped well in the future to support the economic and social aspirations of communities.  This involves addressing the problems that some town centres face, alongside encouraging individuality and diversity – embracing the opportunities that can exist. 

In order to shape and drive this Review forward, an External Advisory Group (EAG) has been formed to move the debate on to the next level and to spearhead action on the future for Scotland’s town centres.  The EAG pulls together a range of people from diverse backgrounds with differing views on what town centres should look like and what solutions need to be put in place to manage change.  Malcolm Fraser, of Malcolm Fraser Architects is the Chair of the EAG.

Full list of EAG members

The review will have five phases:

Collation of research and thinking. In order to guide the review process, the Scottish Government will pull together recent research and thinking about town centres in Scotland.  This should help ensure that the start of the review process is focussed on action as opposed to debate.

Opening Event – Review Symposium. A two-day review symposium in Kilmarnock on 25 and 26 September 2012 will open the review.  Event attendees will comprise of EAG members and town centre experts.  The symposium will focus on agreeing the priority areas for action as part of Phases 3 and 4 of the review.  

Ideas Development and EAG member action (October 2012 – February 2013). As part of the Review Symposium, EAG members will be asked to commit to future action to take forward development of the ideas and initial prototypes falling out of Phase 2.  Professional bodies and agencies will be encouraged to come forward and work on the published themes with the lead EAG member.

Demonstration projects (2013). Following the completion of Phase 3, in 2013 local partnerships and communities will be invited forward to either test or challenge the published set of ideas and prototypes through a set of practical local projects.

Capturing the Learning. It will be important to capture the learning from each phase of the Review and to derive action for policy at both national and local level.  A robust plan for doing this is currently being developed.

Third Force News,  24th September 

RENEWABLE energy developers and communities are being urged to post details of their community benefit programmes on a new register that will map how Scotland is profiting from developments.

More than 100 communities in Scotland are thought to be benefitting from deals with the developers of Scotland’s 136 wind farms and around 30 hydro schemes. The agreements range from annual cash payments to community groups or charities to employment and training opportunities.

The register, which has been created by Community Energy Scotland, is a voluntary database that aims to develop a much clearer picture of the different types of benefit that communities are receiving.

At present, most arrangements are in the form of a single or annual cash payment, which may or may not be paid directly to the community concerned.

For example, since 2008, Scottish Power Renewables, which runs Scotland’s biggest wind farm at Whitelee (pictured), has donated £1,480,750 to communities in East Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire and South Lanarkshire.

First Minister Alex Salmond welcomed the launch of the register and said that it would be a useful tool to help communities in areas where new renewable energy schemes are being developed.

“Many communities are already reaping the benefits of green energy and the new register provides a level playing field to ensure more share in the advantages of Scotland’s vast natural resources,” he said.

“The Community Benefit Register allows local communities to enter negotiations with developers – from those putting up single turbines on farms and estates to those building the largest schemes – on an even footing.”

There are already 34 entries on the database from developers and communities.

Jennifer Ramsay of Community Energy Scotland said: “The register will detail the tangible benefits to communities from developments, and underline the positive changes that the funds have generated on a local level.

“The information is available to all, and anyone with an interest in community benefit schemes will see quickly and easily what funds are in place across Scotland.”

Want to know more : www.communityenergyscotland.org.uk/register.

Jon Henley, The Guardian

Books, believes Hernando Guanlao, need to live. And they’re only alive if they are being read. Thought and effort, time and money went into making them; they will never repay it lying idle in a cabinet or on a shelf. Books need to be set free. So walk by his home on Balagtas Street in Makati, downtown Manila, and it seems books are pretty much all you’ll see. Thousands of them, on shelves and in crates outside on the pavement, piled high in the garage and on the stairs, each one free to anyone who wants it.

“People can borrow, take home, bring back or keep,” says Guanlao, 60, a former tax accountant, ice-cream salesman and government employee known by all as Nanie. “Or they can share and pass on to another. But basically they should just take, take!” Guanlao reckons books “have lives, and have to lead them. They have work to do. And the act of giving a book …it makes you complete. It makes your life meaningful and abundant.”

Thankfully for Guanlao’s faith in human nature, people also give – often people he has never previously met, or doesn’t even see: they leave boxes of books outside his door. “What’s taken gets replaced many times over,” he says. “I don’t keep an inventory. But there are a lot of books. They want to be read, so they come here.”

The Reading Club 2000, as it is called, began 12 years ago as a tribute to Guanlao’s late parents, both civil servants. “They gave me my love of reading,” he says. “I wanted to honour them and to do some kind of community service. So I put my old books – and my brothers’ and sisters’, maybe 100 in all – outside, to see if anyone was interested.”

It took a while for people to work out that this was, as Guanlao puts it, a library “open 24/7, and with no rules”, but the scheme, offering everything from battered crime paperbacks to fashion magazines, technical manuals, arcane histories and school textbooks, is booming.

It is helped by the fact that despite a 1994 act pledging “reading centres throughout the country”, the Philippines, with a population of 92 million, has fewer than 700 public libraries, and buying books is a luxury many cannot afford.

Fortunately the Reading Club is spreading. Guanlao takes boxes of books into Manila’s neighbourhoods himself, on a specially adapted book bike. He has also helped friends set up similar schemes at 10 other sites around the country, and inspired student book drives.

Aurora Verayo, from a town several hours drive from Manila, says she came to see Guanlao to donate books, but he persuaded her to open her own centre. “I’m going a step further and offering reading sessions for children,” she says. “This is the start of a movement.” Mark, a 16-year-old accountancy student at the Philippine Christian University in Manila, is organising a book drive with friends. “We’ve collected 90 books so far, and we expect many more,” he says. “We’re taking them to the barrios next month. Books open minds. A book can take you anywhere.”

Credit unions could be an antidote to our poisoned financial industry but they’ll have raise their game, writes Lesley Riddoch, The Scotsman

Four years on from the banking collapse and it seems neither banks nor customers have learned a thing.

Banks keep “misbehaving” – Lloyds has just been referred to the Financial Services Authority (FSA); a British “rogue trader” is standing trial for bringing his Swiss bank to the point of bankruptcy, and the FSA’s new managing director has said banks still view customers primarily as sales targets. A fairly normal week.

So, why on earth do customers keep piling money into banks? Presumably because we think there’s no alternative – when, of course, there is. Credit unions are locally owned co-operatives, run by volunteer directors distributing profit to members – banks are national, even global, plcs, effectively run by big pension funds, managed by millionaires and (though some are government-owned) still motivated solely by profit.
Credit unions do charge fees (lower than banks), pay managers (less than banks) and charge interest (generally at lower than bank rates). The key difference, though, is the ethic of understanding, support and trust that underpins the movement and the personal contact which makes it all work. Put bluntly, credit union customers aren’t left to sink or swim.

Complaints against banks misselling payment protection insurance (PPI) schemes have soared but the ombudsman is yet to uphold a single complaint against credit unions whose PPI plans were sold responsibly, without commission or “all up-front” payments. Ironically, though, the post-PPI clampdown means credit unions can no longer sell members unemployment protection to safeguard loans. The banks’ bad behaviour has blighted the credit union movement’s sensible precautions and evidently a quarter of a million (mostly benefit-claiming) account holders don’t constitute a powerful enough lobby to warrant special treatment. But could that missing clout be about to appear?

UK government figures show credit unions made 610,000 loans over the last five years, worth £275m, saving customers £245 each in interest. Some 40 per cent of borrowers also save with their credit union and a quarter of Glaswegians are members. Glasgow Credit Union offers mortgages and the Scottish Police Credit Union offers good rates on loans of between £3,000 and £20,000.

What’s not to like? There is, however, a snag.

Only four of Scotland’s 109 credit unions offers current accounts and none offers internet banking, evening calls or access over a mobile phone. That may not be a problem for the existing 260,000 members but it’s a barrier to growth among the bank-weary “squeezed middle.” If this changed, credit unions could take off.

This time last year, a 27-year-old Los Angeles art gallery owner, Kristen Christian, posted a Facebook message to 500 friends announcing her intention to shift accounts from her bank to a credit union. Within a few days, 9,000 people had joined her Bank Transfer Day page and the slogan “Invest in Main Street, not Wall Street” was born.

Transfer day was selected with another memorable slogan in mind – “always remember the 5th November” — and the National American Credit Union Association estimates 700,000 American consumers opened new credit union accounts in six weeks.

Could the same thing happen here if credit unions felt able to raise their game?

Ms Christian is typical of “conscious consumers” everywhere – she was angered by the banks’ role in financial meltdown, infuriated by big bonuses and massive profits and exasperated by the unfairness of fee structures.

“I was tired of being charged bank fee after bank fee. If their website is down and I have to call in, I get a $2 charge. That’s not my fault. The bank decided to freeze my funds, but made no attempt to contact me. It took nearly three days to give me access again.”

Significantly, though, the “last straw” for Ms Christian was not something that affected her directly – it was Bank of America’s decision to charge poor customers $5 a month to use their debit cards.

Suddenly, the banks had gone too far, levelling punitive fees against folk hardest hit by their own greed and reckless lending. America’s “squeezed middle” finally acted out of solidarity and self-interest. Within days, a self-managing, social-network-based consumer movement was born.

A “can bank, won’t bank” campaign could easily happen here with a similar act of “provocation” and more user-friendly accounts at credit unions.

Thanks to Iain Duncan Smith, at least one of those preconditions could soon be met.

Last week, 70 welfare, housing and business organisations published a list of concerns about government plans to replace the current plethora of benefits with a single Universal Credit payment next October. They focused on plans to pay Universal Credit monthly to just one household member, with only online access to financial information and a possible funding gap as the system changes to payment in arrears after decades of payment in advance.

People on low incomes are generally excellent budgeters – and yet the vast majority currently opt not to receive housing benefit personally but get it paid directly to landlords. It’s easier all round. Currently too, benefits are paid weekly or fortnightly in advance to each household member, not one “lead tenant” (for the same reason child benefit is paid to the mother).

Universal Credit will scrap these arrangements so benefits are synchronised with a working world where salaries are paid monthly in arrears to employees who distribute cash to family members (or not). The government believes this will facilitate a leap from the dole to the workplace and will teach claimants (albeit the hard way) how to manage cash in banks like everyone else.

This may look empowering on paper – in practice it’s likely to cause mayhem. Even folk with jobs check their balance before withdrawing cash. A mistake for someone on benefits could have terrible consequences – fees when cheques bounce, then more fees, more debt and perhaps resort to a “payday lender” or even loan sharks.

That’s why credit unions offer “budgeting accounts” with internal “jam jars” to protect vital rent, heat and utility-bill payments. British banks don’t offer such accounts, so they’ll have trouble helping Universal Credit-receiving clients stay in credit.

And what if they don’t? What if eviction, repossession and destitution result from the present caveat emptor (buyer beware) approach of banks and government – how will the public react on the third anniversary of Bank Transfer Day?

Could Scots deliver the ultimate message to profligate banks – goodbye? It’s really up to Scotland’s credit union movement to decide.

Pride in Place: Tackling Incivilities – A Policy Summary

Douglas White Carnegie UK Trust, 2012 

Local environmental problems – or incivilities – can have a serious and long-lasting impact on wellbeing and quality of life for individuals and communities. Issues such as vandalism, graffiti, litter, dog mess and discarded rubbish really matter to people and have a disproportionate impact on those living in the UK’s least affluent communities.

These important local problems however, are currently falling through the gaps in in the environmental and social policy discourse and are too often seen as trivial and unimportant issues.

The Carnegie UK Trust is concerned that society does not give sufficient attention to the problem of environmental incivilities. This policy paper highlights the wide ranging positive impacts that community led approaches to tackling environmental incivilities can bring about and calls on national environmental charities, government and funders to consider how they can support and empower more communities to take on environmental incivilities in their own area.

This Policy summary is underpinned by two, more detailed research papers which can be downloaded here:

Pride in Place: Tackling Incivilities – Desk Based Research Report: Which contains the findings of our in depth literature review.

Pride in Place: Tackling Incivilities – Case Study Research Overarching Report: Which draws together the findings from eight case studies of successful community –led projects to tackle environmental incivilities from across the UK.

Individual fact sheets for each of the eighth case studies featured in the report are also available:

•    Springhill Garden of Reflection, Belfast 

•    Bredhurst Woodland Action Group, Kent 

•    Civic Pride, Lancashire 

•    Tipton Litter Watch, Sandwell 

•    Urban Eye, London 

•    Llwynhendy Growing Spaces project, Llanelli 

•    Redruth Brewery Leats project, Cornwall 

•    Clean Glasgow, Glasgow

The New York Times, by Daniel P Aldrich, 28.08.12

HURRICANE Isaac, which made landfall in Louisiana recently, not only disrupted the Republican National Convention but also brought back painful memories of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast seven years ago.

In August 2005, my wife and our small children and I evacuated to Houston just before the storm destroyed the New Orleans home we had moved into six weeks earlier. We took with us just a bag of toys and a suitcase. We applied for federal aid, but especially in the immediate aftermath, it was family, friends and friends-of-friends who came through for us.

As a political scientist (I taught at Tulane at the time), I decided to study how communities respond to natural disasters. I’ve concluded that the density and strength of social networks are the most important variables – not wealth, education or culture – in determining their resilience in the face of catastrophe.

Take, for example, the densely populated region around Kobe, Japan, where an earthquake struck on Jan. 17, 1995, setting off more than 200 fires and killing 6,400 people. In the neighborhood of Mano, local residents self-organized into a bucket brigade and doused the flames, while in nearby Mikura, residents stood by helplessly as the fires destroyed their homes and businesses. The residents of the two inner-city neighborhoods were of roughly the same age and social class. But residents of Mano had forged bonds of trust through civic and voluntary activities, including efforts to combat pollution, while Mikura’s communal experiences were far more limited.

Similarly, after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, rural coastal villages in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu followed very different arcs of recovery. From survivors in the temporary shelters around the city of Nagapattinam, I learned that the villages that had formed and maintained relationships with local government officials and foreign aid workers – in many cases, via women who spoke at least a little English – were able to secure disaster relief more quickly, and distribute it more efficiently, than equally poor villages that did not have outgoing and well-connected residents.

The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown around Fukushima, Japan, in March 2011 also demonstrated the importance of social capital. Those who were able to flee (often with help from neighbors and friends) moved in with people they knew rather than into the public shelters. While some towns offered incentives to lure back former residents, many who returned did not apply for aid because of onerous paperwork rules. Instead, they told me, they came back to re-establish friendships and daily routines.

Social scientists know that communities that are relatively homogeneous, with honest government and a history of cooperation and civic engagement, have deeper reservoirs of social capital. I would argue that even in diverse countries like the United States, social capital can be built, not just passively acquired.

First, whether in small towns or big cities, there are always people who choose to go the extra mile to get to know their neighbors – an inexpensive tactic that builds social capital – while others are content to hunker down.

Second, local governments and community associations can follow the example of Japan, which gives money to local communities to hold “matsuri,” or small-scale festivals, so that neighbors – including shut-ins and the elderly – can get out and meet one another. Officials in cities like San Francisco, Seattle and Santa Barbara, Calif., have put on such events as part of disaster preparedness.

Third, civic engagement can be enhanced through structured discussions. Teams led by researchers from Harvard and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine convened focus groups in Nicaragua and South Africa of people who had never met to debate issues like youth literacy, women’s rights and AIDS prevention. The meetings enhanced members’ trust in the other group members, as well as in society and the government more generally. Politically engaged residents plug into existing institutions.

Finally, there is evidence that “community currency” programs, which reward volunteers with an alternative currency that is accepted by local merchants, deepen social networks. 

 A successful form of community currency, also called complementary currency,  was used in the impoverished city of  Curitiba, Brazil. In the 1970s, garbage piled up in shantytowns where the streets were too narrow for trash trucks.   There was no money for a physical fix, so officials offered residents bus tokens and plastic chits exchangeable for food and other goods if they brought garbage to bins placed outside the neighborhoods.  Eventually, more than 70 percent of households participated, an under-used bus system prospered, improved transportation increased employment, the neighborhood was clean,  recycling increased, children had school supplies and improved nutrition, and general health and quality of live got better, all with minimal cash outlay.    

Research in Japan has shown that residents of communities with such programs had greater trust in their government officials than other residents did.

Just as the focus of Western development aid to poor countries has shifted from roads, power plants and factories to productivity, skills and entrepreneurship, so should the field of disaster recovery focus on enhancing resilience – people power – not just physical infrastructure.

There’s no doubt that speedy, efficient distribution of emergency shelter, food, medical care and clothing are among the essential responsibilities of government. But at a time of scarcity, with governments and charities facing financial strain, a focus on the social infrastructure of vulnerable communities may be the best (and most cost-effective) survival strategy.

Glasgow City Council was awarded the top prize for Community Involvement at last night’s Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning. Facing off competition from all around Scotland, Glasgow’s ‘Stalled Spaces’ initiative was awarded the top prize in the Community Involvement category by Planning Minister, Derek Mackay MSP. Glasgow City Council’s Stalled Spaces initiative focuses on the temporary use of vacant or under-utilised land to deliver a range of projects, enabling physical renewal and fostering community empowerment throughout Glasgow.

Alistair MacDonald, Head of Planning and Building Control Services, Glasgow City Council:

“This is a wonderful accolade for a project which is helping to breathe new life into the heart of communities across our city. Glasgow’s innovated approach to utilising stalled construction sites or land for community benefit is a great example of people working together to make a real difference to their local area.”

“I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Stalled Spaces team for a job well done. We hope that this award will help to promote the Stalled Spaces initiative to a wider audience and encourage more communities, developers and organisations to get involved.” 

Planning Aid for Scotland was invited to assist this year’s judging panel in the Community Involvement category. Petra Biberbach, Chief Executive, Planning Aid for Scotland:

“Glasgow’s Stalled Spaces initiative has been recognised by the Quality in Planning Awards as an innovative example of community involvement in the planning system. It is encouraging to see such a strong partnership approach between the Council, its partner organisations and the many communities around the city, where the people are empowered to make positive changes in their environment.”

Derek Mackay MSP, Minister for Local Government and Planning:

“This is the first year that I have had the pleasure of championing the Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning.  With all of the recent commitment that has gone into planning reform, I am delighted that this year has produced a high number of good quality applications.”

Argyll and Bute Council received a commendation in the Community Involvement category for its Craignish Community Plan, whilst the overall winner at the Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning was Falkirk Council for its Falkirk Greenspace Initiative.