Town centre windfall for three Sutherland communities
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Town centre regeneration funding has been earmarked for three East Sutherland communities, it has emerged.
A total of £84,000 has been identified to be split between Golspie, Brora and Dornoch – the only communities in the county with populations of more than 1000.
Sutherland County Committee chairman Richard Gale passed on the good news regarding the windfall to Golspie Community Council at its Zoom meeting last night.
He said it had originally been announced at a meeting of Highland Council’s economy and infrastructure committee last Wednesday and had been a “bolt from the blue”.
The Scottish Government set up the £50 million town centre fund in partnership with COSLA. Every local authority has received an allocation of the fund based on an equal weighting of the number of towns in a local authority.
The aim of the funding is to “encourage town centres to diversify and flourish, creating footfall through local improvements and partnerships”.
Cllr Gale told Wednesday’s meeting that the funding had to be allocated in this financial year and spent by September 2021.
He stressed it was not for existing projects but for new and sustainable capital projects which would make a lasting. difference to communities.
Local groups will be invited within the next few weeks to put forward schemes.
Community councillor Iain Miller asked for a Zoom meeting to be held to discuss projects. He said Golspie in Bloom had successfully received funding to tidy up an area of the village and suggested that could be the basis of a bigger project.
Chairman Ian Sutherland said: “It’s not a lot of money for a capital programme in the bigger scheme of things. If it is to make the whole village look pretty and to have a nicer town centre, then it would help economic development.”
