Coupar Angus Regeneration Trust
Chairperson’s Annual Report 2010-2011
I am glad to report that this document reflects the activities of the Trust for a twelve month period, i.e. from May 2010 to May 2011, rather than the atypical period of the previous annual report which was caused by the gap when we did not have a Project Officer.
Not that this year has been any easier from the financial perspective since our application to the LEADER fund for a new project was unsuccessful in the Spring of 2011. Given the release of the formerly ring-fenced monies held back for any unforeseen works associated with the Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI), we have been able to keep Jill Davies in our employment through April and May 2011 pending the decision on our revised LEADER bid. We were advised by the LEADER Local Advisory Group to submit a new bid and news of this is expected in June 2011.
The new bid is based on very different priorities such as the area path network and the development of anaerobic digestion plant for the processing of agricultural products and waste. Our emphasis on both these strands is community benefit in terms of general exercise and the possibility of using power or excess heat for horticultural or other projects.
During the Spring of 2011 the Trust office moved from its long-term location in the Royal Bank building on Union Street, Coupar Angus to new premises at 12 Union Street. The new building was one of the frontages treated in the Restoration of Architectural Detail (RAD) phase of the THI. It is a condition of Heritage Lottery Funding that treated buildings must be brought back into use. The new location is closer to the town centre and easily accessed off the adjoining pavement thus giving the Trust a more public face. I wish to record my thanks to Jill Davies, members of her family and to Kerr Picken who assisted in the fitting out stage of the move which will reduce the Trust’s overheads considerably.
Finally in this section I would record my thanks to Ron McDonald who, as Chair of the Coupar Angus and District Heritage Association, had been an ex officio Trustee until his resignation between the April and May 2011 Trust meetings for personal reasons. We regret this very much since he has a wealth of knowledge of Coupar Angus and its environs. He is succeeded by Jo Richards who was asked by the Association to fill the chair’s post until their AGM. Jo was a CART Trustee in the past as chair of the Association and thus will be able to make a valuable contribution again.
The focus of our efforts over the year have been guided by the LEADER funding we had which was to promote community coherence and co-operation. To that end Jill Davies, our Project Officer, devoted a great deal of time and effort. Many contacts were made with groups working on particular interests in the area but unfortunately one of the objectives, the setting up of a Community Forum, did not come to fruition. It seems there is a way to go before many of the groups appreciate the potential benefits of discussing their work with each other and seeking additional help by that means. However, other types of meetings have been held, as I will describe, which have been useful in identifying local needs.
The Older Adults group, which meets in the CART office, has been running very well as has the New Age Kurling group to whom CART has lent its PowerPoint projector thus allowing them to enjoy other games using Nintendo and Wii equipment.
Our Project Officer has completed the venues directory which is now on the Trust’s website and has been published as a separate document. This describes the facilities available in every hall in Coupar Angus, the costs and the necessary contacts for hiring them.
The new office has acted as a distribution point of the Pride of Place Group’s re-usable bags and the group itself has gone from strength to strength winning a Gold award in the most recent Take a Pride in Perthshire competition. Another huge success for them has been the purchase and erection of a full scale polytunnel adjacent to Coupar Angus Primary School. This will be used to bring on their floral display baskets and to show the children how to grow plants and vegetables themselves. Strictly speaking, of course, this is not a CART project, but the Trust did assist in the setting up of the PoP group and is delighted with their achievements.
Another event, which as reported last year, did not take place in 2010, did happen in 2011 on the 26 th of March. That was the Horse Fair which the then CART Project Officer, Rona McKinnon had begun in 2006. I believe there was widespread pleasure that the event had been run again since its absence in 2010 certainly disappointed many people. As noted in my last report that gap was due to a combination of circumstances not least the ongoing groundworks at The Cross in the town centre.
Further positive news comes from the Coupar Angus Youth Activities group now running the former YWCA building. I have been a member of their Committee since its inception and am very pleased to report that the Group is moving ever closer to being able to assert title to the building. I am facilitating the final stage of this as I write this report and expect to be able to report its completion soon. CART will be happy to help the Group in any way we can. They now have charitable status on their own account and have been helped greatly by John Corrigan of the Council’s Community Learning and Development Service.
Our Project Officer succeeded in winning ten tickets to the Edinburgh Festival Fireworks in 2010 and four local groups were able to have representatives attend. This provided another opportunity for people to mingle and discuss their own interests and see if they might be able to co-operate with others or get help from them.
Finally in this section, a World Café style event for community groups was held by CART on the 12 th of February 2011 in the Town Hall. A broad spectrum of local groups attended making new contacts and exploring opportunities for collaboration. There were three definite outcomes of the event which will be ongoing for community benefit. These were a Coupar Angus Facebook site which has been set up by young people in the area to keep in touch and exchange news, a means of promoting the Council’s East Perthshire texting service to keep people up to date with events and developments and the compilation of a group listing which was carried out by a University of Dundee student on work experience with the Council’s Community Learning and Development Service.
Following on from the completion of the conversion of the former Co-Op and the Royal Hotel into residential accommodation, the Lodging House is also now finished. The extremely bad winter conditions have, however, caused some damage to the lime wash coating at ground floor level where snow cleared from the adjacent streets had been piled. The Scottish Lime Centre is being consulted in relation to this and I hope a means of remedying the situation will be found.
On a purely personal note I feel bound to say that this does, in my opinion, call into the question the insistence on the part of Historic Scotland that traditional methods and materials must be used in such circumstances. This was, after all, originally a red sandstone building and while it had been renovated using lime wash many years ago, which also failed, no lessons seem to have been learned. There are finishing materials which would look exactly like lime wash but would not be subject to this type of damage. Nor would they require regular repeat coatings which will inflate the Council’s housing costs. That notwithstanding, it is pleasing to report that the LEADER funding for a traditional masonry course is to be used for that purpose by the Tayside Criminal Justice service and the Council’s Community Care service. If successful, this will educate people who can then act as supervisors in, for example, projects undertaken by the Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust.
Additionally, many of the frontages qualifying for Restoration of Architectural Detail have now been treated. These include buildings at The Cross, and in George Street and Union Street. As a result the centre of the town looks a great deal better than for many years and the Trust is very pleased about this. Indeed, so much better has it become that we are often asked by people when something will be done about other buildings in the area. At present this is entirely down to their owners and I am glad to say that there have been examples of people carrying out restorative works on frontages outwith the THI scheme and the Conservation Area. If any other owners wish advice about possible grant aid for such purposes the Trust will be happy to assist in providing contacts in relevant organisations. Whether the Trust, as has been mooted, will attempt to promote a second THI remains to be seen but the extension of the Conservation Area south of Burnside Road may open that possibility.
In concluding this section I am delighted to be able to report that Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust has been successful in a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a Historic Graveyards Project in East Perthshire. CART will be co-operating with them as much as possible and have already helped facilitate meetings with various local groups and the Project Officer appointed to run the scheme. The Abbey Church graveyard will be one of the key projects and we look forward to assisting in the work when we can. It may be that this is, as I had hoped, the route to achieving one of CART’s ideas of many years ago, namely improving the access to and floodlighting the remaining fraction of the mediaeval Abbey and improving its signage.
Our Project Officer has been in discussions with the Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust to develop a plan for the local path network. The Council’s overall Core Paths Plan has been delayed by the need to refer it, in its entirety, to the Scottish Government Reporters. However, there are a number of local paths which we know people would like to use and if we can gain agreement from landowners, and the funds to carry out renovation work, we intend to progress those. Thus applications are in train to potential funders, apart from the Countryside Trust, to secure the necessary money.
We also had some good news in terms of funding when a team of local people won their Postcode Challenge TV quiz and donated £500 to CART for which we are most grateful. This also lead to STV filming in Larghan Park and, hopefully, interesting a wider group of people in its use. The park has also retained its Green Flag which is very positive from the point of view of attracting people to it which, in turn, may increase the local visitor industry and assist businesses.
Clearly there is a fine line between this and the previous section but this element is the more local aspect. As noted above, Larghan Park has been very well used since its rejuvenation and is an ongoing source of pleasure for the entire community. What CART would like to do next is arrange for signage to be placed along the perimeter path. This would both inform visitors about the park itself and direct them to historical aspects of the town. As ever, funding is the problem but we are considering how this may be overcome. It is also most pleasing to note that the Pride of Place group, in addition to the orchard planted last year, have now planted a new woodland area adjacent to the wildflower meadow.
An entirely different aspect of this section is the basis of our current LEADER funding bid which will be determined in June 2011. This relates to the matter of anaerobic digestion plants in the vicinity of Coupar Angus. We are aware that a local farmer is interested and that the company which now owns and runs the chicken processing plant at the western edge of the town is also considering such a scheme. CART’s interest would be as a liaison channel between these bodies and the community to discover what benefits might accrue.
Due to the Abbey Church Hall being closed the community café which our Project Officer had been hoping to hold there could not proceed. This was disappointing as we had seen it as another informal way of facilitating discussion and co-operation between various groups of people in Coupar Angus. However, as noted above, the world café event did take place and was useful.
Our Project Officer had also been considering how to help the significant migrant community now living in Coupar Angus and its environs. In the past they were temporary summer residents only and worked on the large number of fruit farms in Strathmore. In recent times, however, many of them have brought their families here and settled permanently. They are now the single largest element of the workforce in the chicken factory now owned and run by a Dutch/German farmers’ co-op known as VION. Research was carried out into how support for these people had been supplied in other areas, particularly Arbroath in Angus and Aberfeldy in Highland Perthshire. It transpired that while a project had been run in Arbroath and a smaller one in Aberfeldy, in fact the situation in Coupar Angus was that VION’s human resources service, and the migrants themselves, were able to provide much, if not all, of the help these new residents required. Thus it does not seem necessary for CART to take this idea any further.
In terms of the business community a world café event was held in the Red House Hotel on the 22 nd of February 2011. Fifteen people attended including two Perth based businesses interested in moving to Coupar Angus. We were able to introduce them to the developer who is going to be creating an area of light industrial units at the west end of the town. This was a very encouraging aspect and shows that, as we believed, the town is strategically placed on the main road network which gives access to much of Scotland in reasonable time scales.
One of the outputs of the event is that a senior member of Perth and Kinross Council’s Planning Service will be making a presentation to local business people about what the planning system means for them and how best to advance their developments in future. CART also made a small submission to the consultation by the Planning Service on the Main Issues Report. This was the draft Local Development Plan for Perth and Kinross. Essentially our concern was, and is, that sufficient land be identified for commercial use and that, for example, the local farmers’ co-op, East of Scotland Farmers, is not constrained in its development needs by inappropriate land use designations in close proximity to their existing premises.
There has also been liaison with the Balhousie Care Group who have recently constructed and opened a new care home in Coupar Angus. This has lead to their requesting that the Heritage Association supply photographs of the area for mounting in a room where they will form part of the socialising of residents. There is also scope for organising visits to the home by local groups, or individuals, who wish to help in any way to make the residents lives more fulfilled. The company has expressed its gratitude to us for helping to facilitate this.
As noted in last year’s report, it was our intention to negotiate an amalgamation of the Trust Bulletin and the Community Council’s Coupar Angus news. I am happy to be able to report that this has been successfully concluded and the publication is now being produced commercially by the local Culross Printers. Issue number eight for May 2011 is now being distributed across the area and contains a wide range of information and news including a comprehensive guide to events in the area. We hope very much that this will continue to be viable thus providing the area with a regular monthly publication devoted to local matters on a sustainable basis.
Due to funding difficulties we have not yet been able to publish the town map and guide which has been prepared by our Project Officer. However, we are still actively seeking the necessary money and will progress these items as soon as we can.
Our website continues to be updated by Dave Scott, to whom we are most grateful, and it is great to know that anyone entering “Coupar Angus” in a web search engine will find the site near the top of their results list. Indeed, having just re-tested this, our site is listed at numbers one and two in a Google results list!
It is always difficult to find a new way of ending this report and I cannot claim to have achieved that. The Trust, and our Project Officer, Jill Davies, has been involved in so many different activities that detailing them all is simply not possible. We are grateful to Jill for all her work and to all those who have helped in any way. There is still a deal to be done to improve our area and we will continue to try to do that. We are happy to co-operate with any individuals or groups with similar aims and look forward to another productive year.
A.D. Grant,
Chair of CART,
22 nd May 2011.