Community groups across Highland are being encouraged to submit project proposals for a share of £3m in Community Regeneration Funding which is allocated to Highland Council from the Scottish Government. This year the Council received an allocation of just over £3.8 million pounds.
The chair of the Council’s Economy and Infrastructure Committee said that between 2022 and 2025, over 400 projects have been supported by the Community Regeneration Fund, helping to direct more than £18 million pounds into local areas and unlocking over £50 million pounds in total investment. He claimed this shows the real impact that partnership working and flexible funding can deliver. The current allocation for Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Lochalsh is almost 10 percent of the total Highland allocation and amounts to just over £337,000.
Ullapool High School student Silas Brown was among over 2000 young people nationwide who took part in this year’s Powering Futures Challenge Programme and along with pupils from Dingwall and Tain received a Ken Muir Award, named after Professor Muir of the University of the West of Scotland.
Professor Muir said that the programme and the awards are about reimagining what success looks like by valuing and recognising achievement in every sense of the word. One of Silas Brown’s teachers said that he was particularly excellent at supporting other members of his team showing skills of collaboration, communication and resilience all of which are key components of the course.
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has published a report, called Talking About Heritage, about how heritage matters to people across Scotland. The findings were shaped in part by special workshops held in Ullapool and Inverness with key themes including concerns around the shortage of traditional skills, increased climate impacts such as flooding and erosion, and pride in community ownership and responsibility for heritage sites.
Among more than 6,000 people who took part overall, there was a broad and inclusive understanding of heritage. 88% of participants said that it's the experience of being there that matters to them most about heritage with people feeling most connected to heritage while travelling between places (59%), spending time with family and friends (57%) and when on holiday (46%). The full report is available on the HES website.
