Community development

A “game-changing” £300,000 has boosted a small community’s attempt to secure southern Scotland’s biggest community land buyout – bringing its funding total to £3.1 million – as a 31 October deadline looms.

Where is home and what does it mean to you? It can be a physical building but for many of us it is a feeling, a place, a smell or a view. The people who know you, being a ‘regular’, stopping for a chat, a beaten track and reassuring landmarks. When you’ve lived somewhere all your life and these things are part of your routine it can be hard to think how you might live without them.

Island communities will benefit from a £2 million programme of locally-led green projects designed to help support their economic recovery from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

South of Scotland Enterprise’s Board has announced up to £1 million financial support to the Langholm Initiative charity in its venture to purchase part of Langholm Moor from Buccleuch Estates.

The Festival of Folklore returns this autumn with a brand new online format. Award-winning storytellers and Festival founders, Mostly Ghostly, are delighted to announce the second Festival of Folklore, a free online celebration, connecting with Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters.

Communities in Carstairs Junction, Coalburn and Coulter are being asked to take part in a walking, cycling and wheeling mapping consultation between now and 18 October, to help create new active travel maps and wayfinding.

Over the last few months, residents in Kirkfieldbank have been sharing their thoughts and ideas for the future of their community to develop a Five-Year Community-led Action Plan.

One of Scotland’s largest community buyouts that has appeared at risk in recent weeks has received a major boost thanks to a £0.5 million pledge from the Dunblane-based Carman Family Foundation.

The community of the small town of Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway aims to buy 10,500 acres of Langholm Moor – jointly valued at £6 million – from Buccleuch’s Borders Estate.

Construction work is underway on a £1.6million housing, health and economic project in Skye.

The eagerly-awaited site start in Stenscholl, Staffin by island-based James MacQueen Builders comes 21 years after the last affordable housing development opened in the north-east Skye community.