Month: July 2015

Myself, the project manager (Stewart) and path ranger (Charlie), have now been in our positions for a few months now, and we are making good progress. The improvements to the physical path infrastructure have started. There is a local contractor currently upgrading the challenging section at Ormidale Lodge. Also, excavation work will soon commence from Portavadie through to Strachur, along with timber construction work at Asgog Castle, Millhouse & Lochgoilhead, with works all carried out by local contractors. Footfall counters will be installed at 9 locations on the Cowal Way next month, to give us access to regular and important numerical data. We have an agreed marketing plan in place for the Cowal Way, which will incorporate for example, new branding, social media, and a redesigned website. (Local service companies in Portavadie, Tighnabruaich, Glendaruel, Strachur, Lochgoilhead, Arrochar & Inveruglas will have recently received a mailing about website advertising opportunities). We are visiting all the communities on the Cowal Way to introduce ourselves and to provide regular updates, primarily by attending community council and other local group meetings. We look forward to meeting many of the local residents and businesses at these meetings. If you would like a Cowal Way update at one of your group meetings, please get in touch with me by email at stewart@cgdt.org or call me on 07774 926245.

The last few months have been very frustrating as we have tried to forward our project plans. We formally set up a group with North and West Bute and Tighnabruaich in September last year with CGDT as the parent body. This was done in order to work with Community Broadband Scotland to find a cost effective solution to improve our local broadband provision. We have waited for months for a promised technical report via CBS and for more information from BT regarding their roll out programme. The technical report has now been received but it still leaves a lot of questions to be answered and the BT optimisation report is still awaited. We decided that we must make progress and so have now applied for a grant from CBS to carry out a tender process to find an appropriate supplier. We await the outcome of our application and believe that this will be soon. We will keep the community informed as soon as we have something new to report.

Margaret