Author: Fife Today, 9 November 2011

Dedicated green groups from Levenmouth have blossomed and bloomed at a national award ceremony.

Five local organisations were among 13 from Fife who are celebrating recognition of their ecological efforts.

Keep Scotland Beautiful presented them with environmental ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ awards at a ceremony in Stirling last week.

The community groups were rewarded for their year-round efforts in creating beautiful, clean and green neighbourhoods.

The well-known CLEAR group in Buckhaven was praised for its ‘Outstanding’ achievement, while East Wemyss and McDuff Community Council was encouraged by its ‘Developing’ status.

In the ‘Thriving’ category, Links Road Neighbourhood Watch in Leven, Sea Road (South) Tenants and Residents Association and West Wemyss Community Development Trust were among those commended.

In its seventh year in Scotland, the ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ campaign is a Royal Horticultural Society campaign run north of the border by Keep Scotland Beautiful.

It is ideally suited to volunteer-led community gardening projects or groups who aim to clean up and green up their surrounding area, be it the estate where they live, a piece of communal ground, or the space outside a community building.

The campaign is inclusive and non-competitive, welcoming groups of all sizes.

It is all about bringing members of the community together to make a positive change to the place where they live, work or spend their leisure time.

Derek Robertson, chief executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, and master of ceremonies at the presentations, said: “It’s Your Neighbourhood empowers groups across Scotland to change the areas they live in for the better – for their own benefit, their community, and for visitors alike.

“These groups should all be praised for the results they achieve year on year.”

It’s Your Neighbourhood communities were visited informally by an assessor during the summer.

Visitors examined three themes during their stay – community participation, environmental responsibility and gardening achievement.

16/11/11

Author: 14/10/11 Ayrshire Post

MAYBOLE Castle will get a £110,000 grant to help develop its tourist potential.

And community volunteers meet this week to discuss the best way forward.

The castle is a highly visible tower, being right on the A77 through Maybole.

And many believe it has huge potential as a centre for a range of ventures – family history, exhibitions, conferences, and even weddings.

A grant of £109,024 is going to Maybole Castle Community Trust from Historic Scotland’s building repairs grants scheme.

The trust is talks with castle owners Culzean and Cassillis Estates about taking over the landmark tower. And exciting plans even include an external lift.

Peter Walker of Maybole Castle Community Trust said: “We are delighted with this award.

“Maybole Castle is an iconic building in the heart of the town.

“We still have long way to go, but this award is a much welcomed start.”

Maybole Castle is said to date from 1560, and is a rare survivor of a high-status town house.

Although it has been well utilised over the centuries, it has been on the Buildings at Risk Register since 2009.

Cabinet secretary for culture Fiona Hyslop announced the funding as part of more than £1m awarded to six buildings.

She said: “This grant will help secure the future of a unique building.

“Our heritage lies at the heart of our identity, and contributes substantially to our reputation at home and abroad.

“In tough economic times, maintaining our historic environment ensures valuable sites such as Maybole Castle will continue to play a key role in their communities – from helping to maintain skills and jobs in the traditional building trades through to maximising their tourism potential.”

Much of the repair work to the Castle will require traditional building skills, and the project team hope to employ and train local people for the development work and future maintenance.

16/11/11

Author: David Boyle, NEF

Political disagreement about the provision of allotment gardens has a long and fraught history in the UK. But a new book might point the way forward.

The news that the government was thinking of repealing the Smallholdings and Allotments Act 1908, with its local authority duties to provide, has made me do a bit of reading on the politics of allotments in the Edwardian era.

What I found was a bitter battle, mostly within the Liberal Party at the time, between two different interpretations of land reform.  There were the re-distributists, like the redoubtable Jesse Collings – who coined the phrase ‘three acres and a cow’ – and there were the land tax enthusiasts.

The 1908 represented a victory for the land tax campaigners, supported by the new Labour MPs.  Collings condemned the bill when it came before parliament because it proposed to charge poor people for their smallholdings, rather than lending them the entire purchase price.

Collings wanted people to own small tracts of land.  He believed that was the way to revitalise agriculture.

“They say the land will not produce now,” he said, sounding like nef more than a century later.  “Has it lost its character?  Take one article: how is it we buy every year £5,000,000 worth of cheese from the foreigner?  Can England not produce this?  How is it we purchase from £12,000,000 to £14,000,000 worth of butter?  Is England not a butter producing country?”

He reintroduced his Purchase of Land Bill every year from 1895 until it was finally voted down with the help of Ramsay Macdonald, who – like his colleagues – disapproved of all land ownership, even by the poor.

We are still bedevilled with this radical disagreement.  Do we want to redistribute land, or are we against private property and prefer to tax it – and inevitably limit the access to land by the poorest?

There is a fascinating new book on the market which discusses these issues and puts forward what might be a middle way, by Julian Pratt, whose book The Stewardship Economy unpacks the issues and suggests some ways forward.

Julian is well-known as part of the team that developed a Whole Systems Approach to participation in the NHS, first at the King’s Fund and then at the LSE.  He says he became interested in these issues working in a hospital in apartheid South Africa in the 1970s.

I might quibble with some of his solutions, especially the idea of a 100 per cent land tax, but the book is an important contribution to the new economics, and I commend it.

To download a copy click here

16/11/11

Storas Uibhist will be marking its fifth anniversary as elected, community owners of South Uist Estate with a seminar which, characteristically, is more interested in looking forward to the next five years than basking in the successes that have already been achieved. Mind you, there are plenty of these to bask in — a fact that has sometimes got lost in the war of attrition (and worse) waged against the organisation by a small number of detractors. Fortunately, the votes of the great majority have at each crucial point acted as a necessary bulwark, which is the great safeguard inherent in community ownership. Nobody gets a vote on private landlordism.

So Storas Uibhist overcame attempts to block the Askernish project. They have taken the Loch Carnan windfarm to the point of development, having faced down the attempt from within their own community to hijack the essential grid connection. They have put together a formidable funding package for the transformational developments at Lochboisdale, in spite of attempts to dissuade key funders from supporting it — again from within South Uist itself.

There is a great deal else besides. Storas Uibhist is a substantial, multi-faceted enterprise. A vast amount of work has been put in by the elected directors, past and present. Sometimes they have had to take decisions which, by their nature, could not be universally popular. Like any such organisation, they will have got most right and a few wrong. Throughout the five years, they have had to suffer attempts to undermine the whole concept of community ownership, eagerly abetted by the media connections of the disgruntled.

But they have come through it all with flying colours, building the potential for economic progress which could only have been dreamt of and spoken about, but never brought to fruition, while the land was under private ownership. They deserve a lot of respect. The next five years will see the groundwork being turned into solid achievement. With the wind farm in operation — complete with grid connection — there will also be a steady revenue source to support more ideas, more enterprises, more jobs.

It is worth noting that all the external bodies which helped bring the biggest buy-out in the short history of this movement to fruition five years ago have maintained their commitment to it, one hundred per cent. The Big Lottery and HIE have been constantly harassed by those whose mission is to wreck the whole thing. It would have been easy to hedge bets or put their money elsewhere. Instead, they have looked for themselves then remained constant in their support.

Storas Uibhist has a lot to celebrate as the five-year landmark approaches and also a lot of work in progress. It is a good moment to pause and take stock not only of the specifics in South Uist, Eriskay and Benbecula but also of the wider state of the land reform movement and what needs to be done in order to revive it. And that is not too difficult to define.

There will be no fifth birthday celebrations of buy-outs over the next few years because there haven’t been any recently. Indeed, the movement just about ground to a halt after Storas Uibhist got across the line. That was certainly the last big buy-out to be supported by the Scottish Land Fund for the simple reason that the Scottish Land Fund ceased to exist, subsumed into the generality of lottery funding.

Political support for community buy-outs also seemed to evaporate. By that I mean more than the ritual of elected politicians nodding sagely and saying that community ownership is a good thing. Someone needs to drive the process, make demands, cajole for funding and also the legislative changes that would make the process easier and open it up to more communities, both crofting and non-crofting. None of that has happened. There is now an organisation, Community Land Scotland, which is setting the agenda, but it needs political support There is certainly no shortage of demand for the Gigha/North Harris/South Uist etc etc experience to be repeated elsewhere. There are dozens of communities, particularly in the West Highlands and Islands,which are anxious to promote community buy-outs. But without access to the funding which is necessary to support their ambitions in the early stages, then these initiatives will inevitably fade away and whatever momentum remains in this movement will be lost. This is now an urgent danger.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise continues to do excellent work in supporting buy-out organisations wherever possible. But there is only so much they can do on severely limited funds. HIE has faced serious budget cuts over the past few years and we are now told that the budgets  of both it and Scottish Enterprise are to be further raided by the Scottish Government to pay for its own priorities.

That makes it all the more necessary for a distinct Scottish Land Fund, with its own budget line, to be created. When the last one was established more than a decade ago, the chosen route for funding was through the National Lottery — a pragmatic solution at the time but always, as events proved, one which was vulnerable to competition from other demands upon Lottery resources, particularly those from Scotland’s urban communities. Once the Scottish Land Fund ceased to be ring-fenced, it was a dead duck.

Land reform is too important to rural communities to be left to any Lottery. It needs to reflect a sincerely-held sense of political priority. And in order to justify and sustain that status, it also needs to be capable of demonstrating economic and social returns. That is why the achievements of community-owned estates over the past dozen years need to be trumpeted a lot more loudly.

Quite simply, none of the exciting, positive inititiatives which are now being pressed ahead with — from Galson in the north down to Gigha in the south — could have happened without the change in ownership which underpins them and the democratic involvement that has driven them forward. Of course there will be people who retain a vested interest in the old order and have no wish to acknowledge what the new one is capable of delivering.

Just as has happened in South Uist, such views must be resisted by those who currently have political responsibility in Scotland. There needs to be some positive signs of support for the expansion of community land ownership and by far the most effective way of demonstrating it would be the early announcement of a new Scottish Land Fund. Where better than in South Uist on Friday?

16/11/11

Author: Ross Martin, Scotsman, 9/11/11

PICTURE the scene. Dusk is setting in, the air is beginning to chill and as time-poor commuters rush by on their way home, the resource-rich display of fruit and veg outside the corner store is being taken in for the night by the local shopkeeper. Next door, the newsagent is shutting up shop and is heading for the hairdresser after another 12-hour day, which began at dawn, organising the papers to be delivered to front doors throughout the local community.

The hairdresser has expanded, with a training facility and is open longer hours to cope with demand and the harsh, bright light which would normally be bursting through their huge floor-to-ceiling front window is softened by the condensation, which betrays the temperature difference, outside and in.

The pharmacy on the other side of the road has also extended its opening hours, offering an increasingly wide variety of services, which is taking the load off the GPs’ clinic that has itself been over-stretched by the ageing national demographic.

As the staff finish cleaning up at the local café, ensuring they have all the necessary supplies to turn out tomorrow’s lunches, snacks and that essential of modern living, quality coffee, the chip shop owner fires up the deep fat fryers, watching over the school student staff behind his counter. These mid-to-late teens learn a lot in this simple transactional business, earning their first wages, while also having that priceless asset of an employment culture embedded in their psyche.

A little way along the road, the staff of the Chinese takeaway and those of the neighbouring Indian restaurant arrive at the end of their respective daily routes to an evening of serving mostly grateful, but occasionally drunk and aggressive, members of the local community. Next door, the local Asian shopkeeper, with his mini-market store still open, fights for survival against the purchasing and pricing power of the recently opened superstore, situated in the adjoining settlement.

At the rail station, as the 17:30 from the city pulls in, 50 or 60 commuters prepare to alight, the majority of whom head quietly, individually, alone for their cars in the free parking provided by the local council. A few take the dozen or so steps across the car park access road making for the local pub to enjoy a well-earned glass or two with acquaintances they’ve made in that welcoming, warm convivial environment.

On a Friday, this pub is the hub for different sections of society throughout the evening, starting with the tradesmen who finish at 4pm, followed by the suits from the city between 5pm and 6pm and then the volume cranks up as the 20-somethings arrive for their pre-town drinks, getting in some dancing practice as well.

This vibrant, energetic and friendly mix represents large parts of the community, with a few locals of a more mature vintage taking up their usual positions on the bar stools, dispensing wise cracks and sage advice in equal measure.

This isn’t “Anytown”, although it could be. This is my town, a place called Larbert, or to all of us who live here, this is the place we call “home”. It is these actions, these interactions, the relationships and transactions, both economic and social, that bind our community together. This place and its importance in our lives cannot be underestimated; we neglect it at our individual and collective peril. Allow our towns and villages, our cities and their centres to decay and fragment and society itself will pay a heavy price.

The characters in my story are real people, living real lives. This international mix of race, religion, colour, creed and orientation is representative of any town in Scotland. The individuals who live, work and play here are as varied and interesting as the place itself, living out their own life stories, day by day, scene by scene.

In this small country of ours, with its rich, colourful and proud heritage, we are only beginning to appreciate the role and function of place and how we interact with it, and more importantly, how it interacts with us.

For far too long, we Scots have allowed our towns to become homogenous clones, with their core and character being slowly but surely sucked out. Our villages are under threat from a creeping centralisation, as our cities, the big engines of our economy, inevitably strengthen their centripetal pull, creating and then building upon critical economic mass.

If we stand back and do nothing, these trends will continue unabated to the detriment of all. Villages will become lifeless dormitories devoid of any soul, towns will be left to a spiral of decline and decay and our cities will lose the variety in their hinterland which contributes so much to their attractiveness as places to invest.

We must recognise the importance of place. It shapes us as we develop from child to awkward teenager. Place determines where we set up our own home, where we decide to bring up our family. It is the characteristics of a place that determine our life chances, whether the school we attend lifts us up, or lets us down. The community in which we grow up conditions much of our behaviour, our choice of who we are. It is the place in which we live that shapes who we become.

As we rush around in our daily lives, how many of us stop to think about the context in which we live? Do you spare a thought for the vitality of small businesses, and their place in your local economy? Who among us makes a positive daily choice to support our local corner shops, either on the way to work, on the way home, or even when buying the Sunday papers and rolls? Is the vitality of the town centre of interest or should we simply allow market forces to do their worst?

These questions, and many more, will be addressed at the annual Scotland’s Towns Conference, on 16 November, in Dunfermline, a town which helps to define the character of this country. The conference will be showcasing the excellent work that a wide range of individuals, businesses and organisations are doing to not only breathe new life back into our town centres, but also to demonstrate how valued they really are. Locally-led groups, such as Business Improvement Districts, are making a real difference, re-energising these beating hearts of our economy. They are successfully arresting years of decline and seeking to fend off any further decay.

Town centres and local high streets are the places where people meet, where we transact a wide range of business (economic, social, cultural and more) and, crucially, where many of us feel at home. They root us not only in the past but in the present too. If nurtured, our towns, villages, local high streets and yes our city centres too, will represent who we are, and who we can be. If not, they will simply show us who we once were.

As we begin to appreciate the importance of place in our own story, past, present and future, let’s consider the words of Anthony Hopkins’ fine characterisation of John Quincy Adams in the movie Amistad. When pleading the case of African slaves transported to an alien place, this former American president tackles his own demons when finally realising the importance of place in developing character: “We understand now…that who we are, IS who we were.”

It is time we in Scotland understood the importance of place, and how it shapes who we are, and who we can be.

16/11/11

In the face of a stagnating economy and predictions that poverty will rise in the next four years, those fighting poverty in Scotland will face many challenges over the next few years. Yet despite the fact that large cuts are being made to public spending, the UK remains a wealthy society – highlighted by recent figures on the 49% increase in pay for FTSE 100 directors.

It is in this context that the Poverty Alliance will be organising the 3rd Scottish Assembly for Tackling Poverty. The Assembly will take place in Glasgow on the 15th and 16th March 2012 and will be a chance to challenge our current ways of working. It will be an opportunity to look at look at real alternatives; from the economic model to community driven alternatives that are delivering justice for those on the sharp end of a broken system.

We are seeking successful community led projects that are demonstrating effective alternatives that tackle poverty. We are looking for community based initiatives that are addressing aspects of:

• Child poverty (for example child care initiatives or extra curricular activities)
• Fuel poverty (for example through ownership of renewable energy)
• Welfare reform (for example welfare rights advice initiatives)
• Alternative economic models (for example co-operatives or mutuals)
• Sustainable communities (for example projects that address poverty and the environment and the empowerment of disadvantaged communities)

The Assembly will be a real opportunity to exchange your experience, to present evidence on what has worked, and to make demands for change. If you are part of an initiative or know of one that is addressing one of the themes above we would like to hear from you. We will be creating a number of different types of opportunities at the Assembly for exchange and discussion. If you are interested in being involved next year please fill in this form and send it back to us. We will then be in touch to discuss how best you can be involved.

The Poverty Alliance
162 Buchanan Street
Glasgow, G1 2LL

E: admin@povertyalliance.org

As the government legislates for social cohesion at a local level, the Land Trust is urging house builders and property developers to make their surplus land available to local communities by creating open public spaces that can be enjoyed by all, whilst increasing profitability for the landowner. The Land Trust has appointed six property consultancies to a newly created framework with the specific remit of targeting land-owning organisations across the private and public sector.   With over 1,000 hectares across the UK, the Charitable Trust offers cost effective management solutions for open and green spaces and aims to increase its holdings ten-fold by 2020.

Euan Hall, Chief Executive of the Land Trust, said: “We’re talking about a win-win situation for house builders and property developers that profits communities socially, profits landowners financially and delivers Big Society in spades. 

“In these times of economic austerity, countless organisations are desperately clinging onto swathes of non-operational land that is at best a distraction and at worst a financial liability.

 “At the same time, communities across the country are crying out for more public green spaces that can act as an outdoor escape, improving the neighbourhood’s well-being and boosting the local economy.

“This paradox doesn’t have to exist. Well managed multi-functional open spaces have the ability to transform lives whilst reducing costs and liabilities for the owner.  The creation of new open space on the site of a former colliery at Phoenix Park, near Barnsley has directly increased local property values by around £50m.  Part of the site at Bentley Community Woodland in South Yorkshire had a negative value when we took it on, but just three years later it was sold on for a six figure sum.

” The new development partners’ framework is made up of six leading property players: BNP Paribas Real Estate partnering with WSP; Bruton Knowles; Capita Symonds; Gerald Eve; The Environment Partnership; and URSUS. Their remit is to target the key industry sectors, including construction and property development, identified by the Land Trust as being most at risk from not divesting non-core land. 

House builders and other property developers have large landbooks, and can end up owning several different types of non-operational land, from public amenity use, through to dormant land pending development and areas with tight restrictions on potential end use.  The Land Trust’s research shows that poor quality open space breeds dereliction and abandonment bringing negative economic effects, putting off investment, reducing trade and footfall, and attracting anti-social behaviour.  With grounds ranging from the former Liverpool International Garden Festival site to the Greenwich Ecology Park in London, the Land Trust has extensive experience of converting derelict land into large scale country parks or smaller urban parks.

Hall added: “House builders have operational management responsibility for some public realm or open space amenity however restrictions on end-use may be linked to planning obligations which can result in a financial challenge.

 “But leaving this land to become derelict isn’t an option.  From a developers point of view the damage to asset value and reputation of poorly managed open space can be considerable – such reputational damage could count against them when future planning applications are considered

“The strategic partnerships with these six property consultancies gives us additional firepower to promote our range of sustainable management and ownership solutions to a much broader audience. Our track record at designing and maintaining spaces whilst future-proofing the landowner’s reputation and investment speaks for itself. 

“With markets spiralling and the Localism Bill going through parliament, there’s never been a more pertinent time to reassess your landholding.” 

16/11/11

Author: A blog from Julian Dobson

We’ve been hearing a lot about optimism lately. David Cameron last week invoked the British bulldog spirit in a speech that suggested all we need is strong leadership (his leadership) and to stop being ‘soggy’.

So how’s it looking out there in the real world? Have we got cause for a new wave of optimism?

Look at the big picture and you might think not. Here’s a random selection of recent highlights. At a global scale, we’ve seen the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warning of continued price volatility and the best part of a billion people at risk of hunger. Small, import-dependent countries are most at risk, it says (the UK, by the way, hasn’t been self-sufficient in food for well over 200 years).

Let’s come closer to home. Here’s the British Retail Consortium, making the most of a slight increase in consumer spending last month:

‘Underlying conditions remain weak. Spending growth is below inflation, meaning customers are buying less than last year.’

What that means is the prospect of consumers spending the UK out of recession looks bleak. And given that retail accounts for around 14% of employment in the UK, that’s worrying.

There’s reason to be worried. Take a look at the latest report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, not known for its tendency to scaremonger. In the next two years median income is likely to fall by 7%, the biggest drop since the oil crisis of the 1970s. More than 3m children will be living in poverty.

Dig behind the figures and you’ll find the squeeze isn’t being applied evenly. A recent report by the Resolution Foundation found that even when the economy was growing, the living standards of the bottom half of the workforce weren’t growing at the same rate. In the five years from 2003 to 2008 the economy grew by 11%, but median wages didn’t shift. That’s because more of the profits have stayed in the hands of the top earners or been distributed to shareholders, while low earners have become more dependent on state support.

So where is the cause for optimism? Not in public school pep talks about leadership or in economic strategies dreamed up by the consultants at Micawber and Pangloss.

This week I’ve been talking to people who make me optimistic because they’re taking action, using the resources they have to make a difference. People like Jon Fitzmaurice, who runs Selp-help Housing, giving people tools and advice to take over empty homes and bring them back into use. People like Dan Thompson, who’s been doing a similar job through the Empty Shops Network, reusing the empty shops blighting our high streets. People like Tessy Britton, who’s creating a series of Community Lover’s Guides to help people celebrate what they value about their towns and cities.

There are many more like them. They don’t have great personal wealth or the backing of corporations. But they’re using the crisis we face as an opportunity to build a better world. What they have in common is that they’re not prepared to wait for an imagined recovery or a change of government – they’re ready to get on, using the tools and contacts and resources at their disposal.

If David Cameron really wants to build a more optimistic country, he needs to invest in the people with ideas that will create lasting change. He needs to invest in the optimists.

The specific findings of the evaluation of the Community Chest Fund were:

1. The Community Chest has successfully engaged with very small community groups across Scotland with grants made in every local authority area.

69% of applications were from, and 74% of grants awarded went to groups with an income of under £10,000. 63% of available funding was awarded to community groups or voluntary organisations not registered as a charity. Over a quarter of applications came from groups that had been operating for less than a year. For the majority of groups who responded to the survey, this was their first funding application.

2. The Community Chest successfully attracted applications from, and awarded grants in 6 local authority areas from which VAF and other funders had traditionally received few applications

The unique approach taken by VAF to penetrating those local authority areas where historically there has been a very poor uptake of mainstream funding was highly successful. Over the two and half years of the grant programme, an average of 40 applications came from each of the 6 priority areas. This compared with an average of only 24 applications from each of the other 26 local authority areas.

3. The Community Chest successfully helped over 500 small local organisations to build their capacity to sustain and develop their activities or services

The combination of a very flexible grant along with the delivery of free training was a powerful tool to engage small groups, and build the confidence and skills of volunteers and staff to sustain and develop services. Concrete outcomes were delivered by the grant programme for volunteers, the funded organisations and the wider communities in which they operate. In addition 20% of grant funding was directly for capacity building activities.

The training programme, delivered to 441 individuals from over 400 organisations in 21 Local Authority areas, was particularly valued by groups with 92% of survey respondents who had attended the training reporting that their group had benefited from the training.

4. The grant successfully helped sustain services to some of Scotland’s most vulnerable people

Applications came from, and awards went to organisations delivering vital services, such as: advocacy advice or information; support groups and befriending; childcare or tackling health and disability issues.

62% of Community Chest funding was used to provide services to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities including: people affected by disability and illness; older people; people from a black or ethnic minority communities; children and families and young people.

70% of applications and grants awarded were for operating costs. 66% of groups responding to the survey stated that their activity could not have gone ahead without the grant they received from the Community Chest.

5. The size of grant, the funding criteria and operation of the Community Chest grant programme successfully met the needs of very small local community groups and the community within which they operate.

At a maximum of £1,000 the grant was large enough to make a big difference to a small group, yet small enough to manage, and allow the application process to be as simple as possible. The application process was considered by respondents to the survey to be “straight forward” and “fairly easy”. The guidance notes and application form were “clear and easy to understand”.

The flexibility of the grant was an important component of the Community Chest grant programme. It allowed groups to address locally identified needs which they were well placed to both understand and react to when equipped with the skills and resources to do so.

Most applicants received a response to their application within 8 weeks. Four grant rounds were held per year to make the programmes as accessible as possible. However, this did mean that a small number of applicants waited up to five months before hearing whether their application had been successful or not.

A number of respondents to the survey also asked for more detailed feedback on why their application had been unsuccessful.

Recommendations

In the light of the findings a number of key recommendations are made for improving the Community Chest grant programme. These are:

1. Consideration should be given to encouraging applications which focus on capacity building activities that help an organisation grow and develop. A target could perhaps be set for this.

2. Consideration should be given to exploring delivering the capacity building training through local third parties, who could be provided with the course materials and trained in their delivery.

3. Consideration should be given to how the delivery and uptake of Measuring Success, the training course on monitoring and evaluation, can be increased.

4. A more detailed explanation of why applications were unsuccessful should be supplied wherever possible.

5. Consideration should be given to reducing the time from application submission to notification of decision.

Community Investment Trust – Executive Summary. Full report here

1. The reason for exploring the option to establish a Community Investment Fund (CIF) is that local engagement with large-scale renewable energy projects is potentially enhanced if local people and their communities have a financial stake in the ventures, and the process may yield outcomes that can benefit developers, investors, communities and consenting authorities. A number of options have been studied. The one which is presented here is a CIF which leases from the operator part of the renewable energy resource (e.g. the wind) accessed by the project asset (e.g. the wind turbines) and pays a toll for the electricity produced. The CIF is then able to sell the electricity to generate funds. In summary the structure is as follows:

• The community investment fund (CIF) vehicle is a standard Limited Liability Company (LLC) that satisfies the requirements for community interest and qualifies for Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) relief.

• CIF funds are obtained from members of the community – “investors” – who each purchase shares in the CIF, and apply for tax relief due under EIS rules.

• These funds (created by the tax relief) are used to pay for the lease fee and toll for the energy source and infrastructure which yields electricity as a saleable product. The lease fees and toll tariffs payable are calculated to give the project operators or capacity/asset owners a positive return. 
• Profitable sale of electricity and associated Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), Climate Change Levy Exemption Certificates (LECs) etc. creates revenue for the CIF which can be used to benefit the community, and for CIF investors to make a return on their investment.

2. Resources available for this study were limited, and many issues related to this model need further examination and discussion. For example:

• Who are the “investors” – individuals, organisations, match funders?
• Who or what is the “community”? The more proximate the community is to the renewable energy project, the greater the sense of local engagement, cohesion etc. How are the community that can invest and the community that can benefit defined?
• What is the “project” being invested in? There is a recognised area of risk around the EIS tax incentive (as there would be with any tax driven incentive) in terms of eligibility and whether this will change in the near future. The main commercial issues to be negotiated between the CIF and project owners/operators include leasing terms and tariff, power purchase/sales agreement (if applicable), entitlement to ROCs, LECs etc. How is the electricity output marketed? An assessment of costs of governance and fund management for the CIF

http://islayenergytrust.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/community-investment-fund-summary-discussion-paper-031011.pdf