Community groups across South Lanarkshire have received a welcome windfall with the distribution of grants from a renewable energy project.
A total of 13 local projects – ranging from energy efficiency and active travel to science scholarships and distributing reading books – are benefiting from funding issued by the Clyde Wind Farm Renewable Energy Community Fund, taking the total distributed by the fund to date to £1 million.
Lanark-based Healthy Valleys received more than £136,000 to expand their active travel programme and improve energy efficiency at their new hub base.
The award-winning organisation has purchased a new electric van and storage containers for bikes to support its Gear Up social enterprise project promoting cycling, wheeling and walking.
Meanwhile, they will also install air source heat pumps, underfloor heating and solar panels at their community hub.
Grants have also been awarded by the Clyde Wind Farm and SSE Renewables sustainable development fund to the Dollywood Foundation, which provides free books to under-fives in South Lanarkshire’s ex-coal mining towns and villages through the Dolly Parton imagination library.
Lanark Development Trust received awarded £42,012 to promote sustainable visitor activities between the town, New Lanark and Falls of Clyde; while six scholarships of £5000 per year are being created for students taking on science, technology, engineering and maths courses.
Funding is also going towards cost of living support for local families, community transport, net zero work including upgrading sports facilities to save energy use and money, and further projects aiming “to support and invigorate communities”.
Healthy Valleys business development worker Jane Masters said: “The award will support the growth of Gear Up, which helps create greener, healthier and more resilient communities.
“Our e-van will enable us to transport our bikes between communities, ensuring easier access to the service and helping us transition towards net zero.”
The organisation was set up 20 years ago and is described as “the key community anchor organisation in rural Clydesdale”, with the vision to “reduce health inequalities in rural South Lanarkshire and enable people to live healthier and happier lives”.
Mairi McAllan, the Clydesdale MSP and cabinet secretary for transport and net zero, visited the group’s new premises at Caldwellside industrial estate and said: “It’s brilliant to see funds from renewable energy projects supporting community development.
“It was fascinating to see first-hand the impact funding has had on Healthy Valleys, enabling them to conduct the incredible work that they are doing with bikes in the community.”
She added: “It’s important that local communities benefit from those who are building and operating green energy assets in the area.”
Clyde wind farm chairman Stuart Hood, who is director of onshore asset management at SSE Renewables, said: “It’s vitally important that we help the rural communities where our wind farms are located, and it is evident that the money from our funds helps communities support themselves.”
He added of the visit to Healthy Valleys: “To be able to celebrate reaching this £1m milestone with an organisation that has benefitted from the funding is great; it enables organisations to build capacity and empowers them so that they can take the initiative to invest in their own futures.”
The sustainable development fund supports strategic projects in regions where SSE Renewables operates, with officials saying it “brings the benefits of energy developments to a wider area and is directed at projects that can achieve significant impacts in communities”.
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