Six island local authorities will receive a share of £4.45m to assist critical projects on climate change, population retention and tourism.
A total of 11 projects, spread across 31 islands, have received funding for the current financial year as part of the Islands Programme.
Projects include a new visitor centre and electric vehicle charging points at Old Man of Storr, nine ‘Island Pit Stops’ at Arran and Cumbrae with better facilities for visitors, a new nursery at Kirkwall to replace an existing building earmarked for demolition and improvement of critical sea front infrastructure at Tobermory.
Announcing the funding during her visit to Orkney, Islands Secretary Mairi Gougeon said: “This is an important investment especially given the consequences of the cost of living crisis and climate change which are of particular concern for our islands.”
Scottish Futures Trust is providing support and feedback for the projects. The funding is part of the Islands Programme, which supports the implementation of the 2019 National Islands Plan, helping to make the Scottish islands even better places to live, study and work.
Tony Rose, director for strategy at Scottish Futures Trust, said: “This funding will now be invested in much-needed community infrastructure such as a low carbon children’s nursery and a circular economy social enterprise venture, that will support repopulation, economic growth and local jobs.
“Our focus now is on working with the successful applicants to see their projects come to fruition and achieve what the communities need.”
The 2022/23 Islands Programme was launched on 21 March, with an application deadline of 10 June. Applications were subject to assessment by the Islands Programme Investment Panel, which then made recommendations on projects to be funded.
The investment comes as a National Records of Scotland (NRS) report found that Scots are swapping city life for smaller rural communities.
Estimates up to 30 July, 2021 revealed a years-long trend had been reversed as some rural communities saw their population increase amid the decline of city living.
The NRS has now assessed almost 7,000 small geographic areas, or data zones, in Scotland to uncover more detail about the population change.
Data zones are a set of small areas covering the whole of Scotland, with the average data zone population in Scotland standing at 786 people in mid-2021.
The analysis found the number of people living in large urban areas had fallen by 5,600, or 0.3%, in mid-2021.
Meanwhile, the populations of rural areas, small towns and other urban areas had either increased or fallen more slowly than the previous year.
Accessible and remote areas had the largest increases in particular – by 13,200 (2%) and 4,700 (1.6%) respectively.
The Orkney Islands experienced the most population growth, with 66% of its data zones increasing, followed by Na h-Eileanan Siar (61%) and Shetland (60%).
In contrast, 19 out of 32 local authority areas experienced population decrease in more than half of their data zones.
Three areas in the west of Scotland saw the largest proportion of data zones decrease from mid-2020 to July 2021.
They are West Dunbartonshire, with 69% of data zones decreasing in population, followed by Renfrewshire (64%) and Inverclyde (62%).
However, most people still live in large urban areas, (38%), and other urban areas (34%), the data shows.
Esther Roughsedge, a statistician at NRS, said: “The population of small geographical areas changes over time for many reasons, including birth and deaths as well as migration inwards and outwards.
“Every council area has pockets of population growth and decline - in the latest year, the largest proportions of data zone increasing in population were mainly in rural and island council areas.
“This is quite different to the patterns we saw the previous year.”
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