Glenkens & District Trust (SC042489)
Report from meeting of Trustees – September 2022
We welcomed Morag Paterson to her first meeting . Morag has recently been appointed by
Dalry Community Council as their Trustee.
There are still opportunities for interested individuals to apply to become a Trustee and we
also welcome applications from groups or individuals to become Associate Members. All the
information is here: https://www.glenkenstrust.org.uk/get-involved
We also welcomed Chris Dempster who has recently joined Foundation Scotland and will be
part of the team working with Suzy Mercer to support our work.
Work is now underway to prepare the Annual Report and Accounts for GDT for year ended
31 August 2022. The AGM is likely to be towards the end of January 2023.
The focus of the September meeting was on the following areas:
Existing Funders
It was confirmed that the Annual fund report for the Fund Year ending 31st May 2022 had
been submitted by Foundation Scotland to Blackcraig Windfarm (Scotland) Ltd, and a copy
provided to GDT.
We discussed arrangements for the monies due from Greencoat Energy Ltd re Windy Rig.
The end result will be an additional £54k being available for awards across the existing area
of benefit. These monies will be held on our behalf by Foundation Scotland in a ringfenced
fund which will be pooled along with the monies from Blackcraig. This fund will retain a
single front end for applicants with the allocation between funds being done as part of the
administration process. Our focus when new funds become available is to ensure applicants
only have one application process to deal with.
It was also agreed that Dalry Community Council and The Royal Burgh of New Galloway and
Kells Parish Community Council would each receive a top up of £1,000 to the small grants
process already available to them to reflect the fact that they were the original parties to
the community benefit arrangements re Windy Rig.
It was noted that Glencairn Community Council had not agreed to be part of a similar
arrangement re Windy Rig and contribute their £18k to the pooled fund arrangement. We
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discussed how this should be addressed in our approach to awards to this funding year.
After a very full discussion we decided that, in view of the sums currently involved we would
not, for this year, determine any exclusion criteria for applications from Glencairn
organisations to reflect this decision by Glencairn Community Council. We would monitor
access to this wider fund by Glencairn organisations over the next funding year and review
this decision in light of this to consider whether there is anything further that needs
addressed to ensure fairness and equity across the area of benefit. The intention to carry
out this review will be communicated now to organisations in Glencairn.
Other developments
We continue to engage positively with developers across the area. While these projects are
progressing, it appears likely that there will be some slippage on completion dates for a
variety of reasons. We have also been informed that the Vattenfall proposal at Whiteneuk
has been put on indefinite hold and that Energie Kontor have a further three proposals
under consideration, Collieston, Manquhill and Divot Hill. They are also planning come back
with revised plans for Garcrogo following their unsuccessful appeal on their original
application.
We continue with the work with Foundation Scotland to develop plans on how we as a
community get ready to utilise the potential pipeline of funds coming into the area. We
have met representatives of Carsphairn organisations and plan to meet representatives of
Glencairn shortly.
We also agreed that the Chair should write to the developers we are engaging with
requesting that any engagement they have on community benefit arrangements should as
far as possible be done collectively with the communities involved, with GDT representing
its Members. This would enable communities to work collegiately for the benefit of the
communities, would assist in information sharing and make more effective use of the time
of all involved. The focus should be how we collectively achieve the best outcomes for the
wider community in utilising community benefits. The wider community has ambitious
plans underpinned by Community Action Plans in place or being finalised and is focused on
how delivery of these plans can be supported. It is also recognised that developers have
their own objectives on how the monies should be utilised and we believe that by working
together with a clear focus on outcomes all parties involved can benefit from these
potentially transformational sums of money.
Fund Statement and Funding Round Update
We reviewed a report prepared by Foundation Scotland setting out details of available
funding with reports on the awards made and details on those drawn down. As at the date
of the meeting £209,709.66 was available, with an expected sum of c£240,000 to be
available for distribution this year taking into account the budget ringfenced for the
Education and Training and fund and the income from Windy Rig. The cut-off date for
application for this funding round was on the day of the meeting and 15 applications had
been received for a total of £306,701.82, some of which, if awarded, would be drawn down
in future fund year due to the introduction of multi-year funding. These will now be
checked by the Foundation Scotland team to ensure they are eligible and then the usual
assessment process will commence. A decision-making meeting will be held on 8
November.
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We have launched our Education and Training Fund and as at the date of the meeting four
applications had been received and one award made. The others are in the assessment
process.
Cost of Living issues
We are acutely aware of the issues being faced by organisations and people during these
difficult times. We have made good progress on the work we identified in May to provide
targeted support to a body who can provide specialist support and advice and hope to make
an announcement on this shortly. In view of the size of our fund we concluded that this was
the most effective use of our limited funds
We also recognised that existing grantees are potentially facing difficult issues due to rising
costs and are planning to write to them to understand whether any are unlikely to be able
to deliver the outcomes from their projects as a result of this. We will review this
information when we consider the applications from this funding round in November.
Community Action Planning
We received reports from the Glenkens & District Community Action Plan Steering Group
which can be found at https://www.glenkenstrust.org.uk/capsteeringgroup . We noted that
the work on the Dunscore Community Action Plan work is progressing
Awards
One out of cycle award was made since the last meeting, namely an award to Loch Ken
Trust of £18,500 to contribute towards the costs of the Loch Ken Trust Officer
Areas of focus over the next quarter
We will continue to engage with developers.
We will work with Foundation Scotland to take forward the work on the development
pipeline.
We will finalise and to obtain relevant support and advice for our communities to address
issues arising from the cost of living crisis.
Foundation Scotland will carry out a robust assessment process on the applications received
by 13 September to ensure that effective decision making by GDT can take place on 8
November.
