Scottish Borders

 

Scottish Borders LAG Vision

The Scottish Borders covers an area of 1850 square miles representing almost the whole of the catchment area of the River Tweed. With the exception of the east, which is bounded by the coastline, the area is surrounded by a horseshoe of hills – the Lammermuir, Moorfoot and Pentland Hills in the north, the Tweedsmuir Hills in the west and the Cheviot Hills in the south.

Mission Statement

To improve the connections between areas of need and opportunity by responding to community and resident priorities in the Scottish Borders by engaging and empowering local people and stakeholder groups, by investing in enterprise, employability and skills support, and by building community capacity, leadership and resilience.

Aims and Strategic Objectives

Projects or activity funded will contribute positively to local people and local priorities, helping our rural communities to thrive through community-led initiatives.  The Scottish Borders CLLD programme will seek to advance inclusion, equality and diversity, and support the overarching Scottish Government priorities which include:

A focus on developing people:

Supporting projects that create employment
Developing community capacity and leadership
Supporting employability and youth employment
Supporting skills development and training opportunities
Geographic focus on areas of rural deprivation

The Scottish Borders 2022 – 2023 and 2023-24 CLLD programme focused on three priority areas:

Rural Poverty – especially child and fuel poverty
Net Zero and Climate Emergency
Inclusive Growth

LAG Mission

The purpose of the LAG is to engage the energy and resources of people and local organisations as development actors, empowering them to contribute to the future development of the rural area by forming cooperative partnerships between the public, private and civil sectors.

The bottom-up approach is at the heart of CLLD LAG approach in that local people are the best experts to drive the development of their areas. This bottom-up approach means that our local community and local players can help define a development pathway for their area consistent with their needs, expectations and plans. Doing this through a collective approach with delegated decision making enables communities to take charge of their own area's future.

Our aim is to create a diverse and proactive Local Action Group that represents the views and needs of communities across the Scottish Borders.  The LAGs roles and responsibilities are set out in the LAG Protocol document, which outlines the LAG functions and responsibilities.  Further to this an MoU Statement outlines the relationship between the LAG and the Accountable Body, Scottish Borders Council.

Youth LAG

There is need to be engaging with our young people in a way that both supports health and well-being and creates opportunities for new business ideas and provides benefit to the local community.

The Scottish Borders Youth Local Action Group (Youth LAG), a sub group of The Scottish Borders LAG is responsible for the fund which will empower young people in their living, learning and working within the region. Among the types of activities that will be eligible include enterprise start-ups, skills development, inter-generational projects, nature connection and inclusion.

Funding could be used to buy equipment and materials, pay for training courses, organising networking events and so on. The fund is aimed at those under the age of 30 and who live within the Scottish Borders, or will be carrying out their activity in the area.

The Scottish Borders covers an area of 4736 square kilometres representing almost the whole of the catchment area of the River Tweed. With the exception of the east, which is bounded by the coastline, the area is surrounded by a horseshoe of hills – the Lammermuir, Moorfoot and Pentland Hills in the north, the Tweedsmuir Hills in the west and the Cheviot Hills in the south.

LAG -consisting of anyone 16 and above (currently 10 members -varies up to 15).  Any local resident can apply to join. Chair and Vice elected annually.

Youth LAG -local young people under 30 (varies 5-15 in number)

No limits to amount of time served (apart from U30 for Y-LAG).

Scottish Borders Council acts as Administrative Body for the LAG

 

 

Contact details