Funding blow for court building community takeover plan

Plans for a community to take over a court building in Stonehaven have hit a funding hurdle.

The Stonehaven Town Partnership (STP) made a bid for the town’s court building and wants to turn it into a strong community facility.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service previously agreed to transfer ownership of the building to the group.

STP had hoped to secure funding to renovate the building from the Heritage Lottery Fund, but the bid failed.

David Fleming, leading the project for STP, said: “There were a number of applications that went forward for funding and we lost out.

“We are now looking at other sources of funding that we can apply to.”

The group has outlined plans for the B-listed building, which include space for the Citizens Advice Bureau and Kincardine and Deeside Befriending.

The group would aim to find an anchor tenant for the building and a number of smaller tenants.

Courtroom one would fulfil a number of uses, such as mock trials and committee meetings.

Small rooms at the back of the building would be made available for craft workshops, storage and other activities.

Mr Fleming said the plans would now be scaled back.

He said: “We had some fairly ambitious plans.

“We won’t redecorate all the rooms in the first instance – that sort of thing.

“We were hoping to do nice things to restore the heritage but that has been put on the back burner at the moment.”

He added: “There were plans to do a lot of nice things but we just don’t have the money to do them.”