RSS Press releases

Two major community led regeneration projects in Mid and Upper Nithsdale have moved a step forward this week as the Scottish Government announces which local authorities have been successful with their bids to its Regeneration Capital Grant Fund.

Kirkconnel and Kelloholm Community Development Trust is set to receive £2.3M while the Old School Thornhill is to receive £1.1M, following the Council’s successful bid to the fund in October.

The bids were prepared and submitted following months of work with both groups as part of the Council’s efforts to bring investment to regenerate vacant buildings and sites in towns and villages across the region. The Kelloholm group will receive funding from the Council towards a new Skills and Innovation Centre on the site of the former Kelloholm Arms pub, transforming a derelict site, while the Thornhill group will receive funding from the Council for the refurbishment of the derelict old school in Drumlanrig Street to provide artists studios, offices and community space.

The Scottish Government announced on 17 December that 22 project bids have been successful in its latest round of funding under the £25M RCGF scheme. The two projects were amongst those confirmed and should now help both to move towards getting underway during 2022. The Kelloholm project was the second largest grant award from the fund for 2022/23.

The new Centre in Kelloholm will provide a high quality business and training hub for the local community to use and will offer training opportunities linked to new investment planned for the area by food manufacturing, engineering, and renewable energy sectors, as well as local land based industries.

A big part of the project will be the digital technology that the building offers to employers and training providers so that they can deliver training from the Centre itself. The project will also provide space for local community enterprises and other small businesses to use.

The Council’s bid for £2.3 million comes on top of an earlier decision by our Economy and Resources Committee (E&R) in June to provide £600,000 match funding towards the project. Kirkconnel and Kelloholm Development Trust is also working with other funders to put in place the remaining package of funding needed so the Trust can commence construction of the £4.3 million development next year.

Communities in the Upper Nithsdale area experience some of the worst social and economic deprivation in Scotland, following the end of coal mining. One difficulty that local people face is accessing training and jobs, and for this reason many young people leave the area for further and higher education or for work, and then never return.

This latest funding announcement is in addition to a decision made by E&R Committee in June to award £989,048 to a local arts group in Sanquhar to redevelop a long term vacant building in the High Street to help regenerate the town centre.

This project at the Old School Thornhill will deliver a community-led redevelopment of the derelict, Grade C listed Old School in Thornhill to form an innovative, creative and entrepreneurial community Hub. The Hub will contain creative studios, offices and business space for use by small local business and charities, a community hall for public events, communal kitchen, flexible “clean” room for learning and wellbeing activities, community ‘permaculture’ garden, and bike hire/storage/repair facilities.

This building will provide a focus and facility to combat rural isolation and poverty while nurturing rural entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. The project will promote collaboration in a community setting, supporting Thornhill to become socially and economically resilient while catalysing inclusive social and economic growth from a district centre for a dispersed rural community. It will offer services and activities that will support young people, the self-employed, small and micro-businesses, the creative industries, music and performance and the economically excluded, in addition to a wide range of local community groups and organisations.

Chair of Economy and Resources Committee, Rob Davidson said: “This is excellent news and I welcome this much needed funding announcement, particularly in this part of our Region. The new provisions on offer, at the centre in Kelloholm, should mean that travelling back and forth to Dumfries or to East Ayrshire to take up jobs and training opportunities will become a thing of the past for people in Upper Nithsdale. The Old School project at Thornhill is a great example of an idea which will bring communities together, strengthening them, and planning for future generations. Very well done to all concerned.”

Vice Chair, Archie Dryburgh said: “Upper Nithsdale is a priority area for regeneration investment by our Council. In Kelloholm, this is very welcome funding for an excellent project which will increase skills amongst the local workforce and will hopefully lead to more, better paid jobs in the area. It will also improve the potential to attract more businesses to Kelloholm and the vicinity. In Thornhill, a new Community hub will be vital to tie the area together, providing a focal point for a range of skills and activities for local people. Hopefully both projects lead to the retention of young people and families, a strengthening of the community and an economic boost to the area, whilst utilising buildings which have fallen into disrepair.”

Chair of Kirkconnel and Kelloholm Development Trust, Matt Lammie said “This grant support for the new Kelloholm Skills and Innovation Centre is fantastic news and a great boost to the community of Kirkconnel and Kelloholm, in what has been a difficult year. Our whole community has worked hard to bring the Skills and Innovation Centre project forward and it will make a real difference to regenerating our area, connecting us to the wider world, and most important of all it will help our young people to get the skills that the need so that they can live, work and prosper here where they were brought up rather than having to move away.”

The Old School Thornhill Chair, Simon Robertson, said “Old School Thornhill made a significant step forward today in revitalizing this important building as a community asset. The award from The Scottish Government to Dumfries and Galloway Council is such great news. We are grateful for the strong collaboration we have built with the council and for the work of our project managers,the board and community for leading the way”.