From casks to castles, how cash will help to forge a better future
BRITAIN’s most remote pub, a community centre and a tourist shop are set to be taken into community hands after sharing a £1million windfall in the Budget.
Rishi sunak yesterday unveiled details of the first 21 UK projects to be awarded £150million in the first phase of the Community Ownership Fund.
They include five grants being made in scotland, totalling £1.07million.
Among the projects to benefit is the Old Forge pub in Inverie on the Knoydart peninsula, with local residents awarded £219,096 to save it through the Old Forge Community Benefit society.
The Old Forge is listed in the Guinness World Records as Britain’s most remote pub – it has no connecting roads and is mainly accessed via a ferry from Mallaig.
It has previously been on the market for £425,000, and the funding is to be used to buy the pub, tackle long-term maintenance and try to encourage local people, visitors and tourists to use it to make it a sustainable business. A pub and community centre will also be set up in the Old school building in Loch Rannoch, Perthshire, after the Rannoch Community Trust was awarded £250,000.
Inverness Castle is to get £19million to redevelop it as a tourist attraction, while £19.9million will go to part demolishing and then redeveloping the Artizan shopping Centre in Dumbarton into a library and museum.
The Burrell Collection, in Glasgow, will receive £1million a year for the next three years. It reopens to the public next year.
A community group in Whithorn, Wigtownshire, will receive £300,000 to turn the B-listed Georgian town hall into a museum and arts centre and a social enterprise to help young people with masonry and joinery skills.
A further £175,000 has been awarded to a local group for repairs and refurbishment to turn the New Galloway Town Hall into a space for community use. The Callander Community Development Trust will get £124,843 to help it reopen the Perthshire town’s visitor information centre.
scottish secretary Alister Jack said: ‘All these projects will bring real, visible improvements for local communities.’