Due to national strike action over pay, there will be no waste or recycling collections in Orkney today, Friday 26 August - and it is likely Monday's strike action will have similar impact.

The tiny community of Hoy in Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland, is set to enjoy a visit by champion cyclist and Olympian Sir Chris Hoy to share with him the treasures, past and future, of their island and of his glittering sporting legacy.

Are you a local community group with a desire to secure funding to improve a community facility, or to help address pandemic, child, food and fuel poverty challenges within your area?

Bids are being sought from community groups within Orkney who want to make a difference through the Scottish Government funded Community Led Local Development (CLLD) grant scheme – the successor to the previous LEADER Programme which saw a wealth of small-scale community-led projects benefit between 2014-2020.

The Orkney Local Action Group (Orkney LAG) delivered the LEADER Programme in the county and will also oversee the CLLD funding allocation for Orkney of £188,330 in 2022/23.

Orkney LAG will accept applications from community groups between 5-19 September through the Council website here: www.orkney.gov.uk/CLLD

The CLLD Programme can support revenue and capital project costs based on the following criteria:

• Community Project Feasibility Grant up to £7,000 – this will enable community groups to commission a feasibility study where there is potential to secure future capital funding which will improve the sustainability of a community building, enable resilience, energy efficiency, reductions in carbon emissions and address challenges within communities recovering from the impacts of the COVID pandemic.
• Community Child, Food and Fuel Poverty Alleviation Grant up to £10,000 – funding to enable community groups to help alleviate child, food and fuel poverty in the community with projects such as: food growing, food larders, community fridges, minimizing food waste, recycling, upcycling, reuse.

Chair of Orkney LAG, Chessa Couperwhite, said: “We are delighted that the Scottish Government has made this funding available to enable the work of the LAG to continue.  The Scottish Government is keen to continue the elements of the LEADER programme that worked well but is also encouraging LAGs to test change.  In addition to these two funds, we will also be reviewing the makeup of LAG to ensure that it is representative of our community and establishing a Youth LAG.

“Projects must be delivered in the current financial year and, although the fund will only be open for applications for a two-week period, we are confident that we will be able to support some really impactful projects.”

The Council’s Economic Development Manager, Stuart Allison, said: “Following on from the successes of the LEADER programme this funding is a hugely important way of continuing to support the development across Orkney of community-led projects that otherwise might not be able to happen, and so confirmation of this new CLLD funding and the scheme’s launch is great news. We would encourage potential applicants to contact Council officers to discuss proposals at an early stage.”

For further information contact Economic Development Officer, Alister Brown Alister.Brown@orkney.gov.uk or LEADER Development Officer, Alison Barclay, Alison.Barclay@orkney.gov.uk

Background:

The CLLD funding is an annual grant allocation to Orkney from the Scottish Government.  It has been provided as a replacement to the previous LEADER funding Orkney received.  Due to the limited size of the funding allocation, it will only be Orkney based, constituted community/voluntary not for profit organisations with a registered bank account that will be eligible to apply.  Applications will not be considered from individuals, sole traders, organisations outwith Orkney, religious or political organisations, or private business.

Orkney LEADER Programme

LEADER (Liaison Entre Actions pour le Developement de L'Economie Rurale - links between actions for the development of the rural economy) was part of the Scotland Rural Development Programme, which funded economic, environmental and social measures for the benefit of rural Scotland.

LEADER was a bottom-up method of delivering support for rural development, aimed at increasing the capacity of the local rural community and business networks by building knowledge and skills, encouraging innovation and co-operation, and attempting to tackle local development objectives.

Funded by the European Union and Scottish Government, the 2014-2020 LEADER Programme was delivered in Orkney by the Local Action Group (LAG).

Folk in Orkney are being asked to share their views to help shape the design of a proposed new coastal path project at Weyland Bay, Kirkwall with the aim of further linking communities and promoting active travel.

The project team are keen to develop ideas collaboratively with the local community, and the public engagement will be hosted online initially, with those interested invited to share their local knowledge and aspirations for the area of land between Carness Road and the coastline at Weyland Bay.

With no national pay agreement in place as yet, strike action is set to go ahead in a number of local authority areas, including Orkney, from Friday through to Monday 26-29 August.

The disruptions will most likely affect the county’s waste and recycling collection services on the Friday and Monday.

On Friday this could see disruptions to area 5 for recycling and areas 13 and 15 for waste and on Monday, Westray could be affected alongside Mainland areas 1 and 6 for refuse and area 9 for recycling.

There will be short periods of delay and road closures in central Kirkwall, Stromness and St Margarets Hope during the week starting Monday 29 August as the Council carries out safety tests on the fixings and anchors points for festive lighting.

Folk with an interest or connection to Egilsay are being invited to play a part in developing how the island’s heritage is shared more widely.

The Egilsay Community Association has received North Isles Landscape Partnsership Scheme funding (NILPS) to host “A Day in Egilsay” community event, which will include heritage talks, discussions, and a walk on Saturday 10 September.

Valerie Dawson, NILPS Project Officer, said: “We have allocated funding to the Egilsay Community Association to assist in the development of heritage displays and interpretation at the community centre. To kick that off they are hosting an event to get people together and start to gather ideas, stories and content for a website and some displays.

There’s been a new “pupil” at Papa Westray Community School for some time now – and Max the autonomous – or self-driving – vehicle has proven to be a star student!

While Max has been trained to carry out different tasks – pupils and staff have also been on an exciting new journey thanks to being part of the international pilot research project exploring the use of autonomous vehicles (AVs).

Head Teacher Tim Ross said: “We were fortunate to receive one of the three robots that came to Orkney as part of the trial. The main targets were to demonstrate the principle and viability of the technology. The children spent the year progressively learning how he worked, training him to do simple 'routes' and eventually trained him to drive to and from the local shop without assistance, resulting in the delivery of school lunch ingredients one day! It has been a great achievement.”

Local residents are being urged to check their electoral registration details or risk losing their chance to vote on decisions that affect them.

The Electoral Registration Officer will be getting in touch with every household to check that the electoral register is up to date, and to identify any residents who should be registered but are currently missing.

Darryl Rae, Electoral Registration Officer for Orkney & Shetland, said: “Keep an eye out for our letter. The annual canvass is our way of making sure that the information on the electoral register for every address is accurate. To make sure you don’t lose your say at the next election, look out for instructions from us.

Orkney Islands Council has welcomed an announcement that additional funding will be made available for the roll out of broadband to properties in Orkney - but warned that some households will still miss out and more needs to be done.

The Scottish Government has announced today (19 August) that an additional £36m is to be invested in the R100 programme, which will see another 2,637 rural properties across Scotland able to access gigabit-capable connections - faster speeds than were initially proposed when the programme was launched.

It is understood that around 1000 of those properties will be in Orkney.