Category: Glendaruel

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CRtB Glendaruel Glendaruel Hotel News Opportunities

CGDT is Granted Community Right to Buy on Glendaruel Hotel

The Colintraive and Glendaruel Development Trust is delighted to announce it has been granted a community right to buy on the Glendaruel Hotel under the terms of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. The hotel which stands at the centre of the clachan of Glendaruel has been closed for 18 months depriving the community of an essential social hub and local accommodation providers of a venue for their guests to find food and drink locally.

In June 2009 when it first considered applying for the right to buy on the property the trust undertook to give the present owners of the hotel breathing space to get their business up and running. Twelve months later the Trust recognised that this was becoming more and more unlikely to happen, and that the community needed the opportunity to take charge of the building and provide for its own future. At a public meeting on 3rd August last year a working group was formed to look at the options for running the building as a social enterprise and to work toward the Community Right to Buy.

The right to buy, which gives the community first refusal when and if the hotel comes on to the market, also requires that a ballot be held to ascertain the community’s opinion of such a course of action. As Charles Dixon-Spain, chair of the Development Trust says, “With the help of the working group who have put substantial time into this project, and our HIE-funded consultant Tom Sillar, we have secured the community the opportunity to decide whether it wants the trust to run the building as a social enterprise.”

Full details of the application for the right to buy are available on the Register of Community Interests in Land.

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Forestry Glendaruel News Projects Stronafian

Next Stage in the Acquisition of Stronafian

Today myself and John McEwan met with Penny Cousins, the panel member for the NFLS, Malcolm Wield and Gordon Donaldson, as part of the process towards a determination on whether the right to buy Stronafian Forest should be granted to the Development Trust.

After a talking through the business plan and the full development programme the Development Trust is putting together, we walked around parts of the forest before repairing to the Colintraive Hotel for a Seafood Chowder lunch (which was delicious!).

The NFLS panel will consider our application on the 20th January, and a decision will be made by Forestry Commission Scotland’s Director, Bob McIntosh shortly thereafter. Fingers crossed.

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Clachan Glendaruel Kilmodan Primary School News

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a really great New Year, and here’s hoping that today’s news on the halting of the schools consultation means that Argyll and Bute Council drop all plans to close Kilmodan.

The Development Trust is convinced of the absolutely crucial importance the school plays in ensuring our community grows and thrives.

Well done to the Parent Council for all the effort they have put into the Save Kilmodan School campaign!

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Colintraive CRtB Glendaruel Glendaruel Hotel News Projects Working Groups

Hotel Working Group & CGDT issues info-flyer on CRtB

The following flyer will be distributed to everyone in the community over the next week, so that all have the facts about the Community Right to Buy process and legislation. In addtion to this, the CRtB on the Glendaruel Hotel will be discussed at the next Community Council meeting at Colintraive Village Hall, on 2nd December at 7.30pm. Everyone is welcome to come and ask questions and hear the discussion about this project.

Please click on the image to open a more readable version!

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CRtB Glendaruel Glendaruel Hotel News Working Groups

Community Right to Buy: Some Facts

Here is a summary of the pertinent facts relating to Community Rights to Buy:

  • A community right to buy gives the community the time to decide whether to purchase an asset at market value.
  • The community right to buy does not force the sale, but only comes into play when an owner decides to sell his or her property.
  • A right to buy petition does not commit the community to the purchase: it only seeks to establish the right to buy. 10% of the community must support the application for it to be valid.
  • The property is valued by a government appointed surveyor, who is entirely independent, and values property at market rates. This guarantees the owner gets a fair price.
  • If the community body decides to activate its right to buy it must carry out a ballot of the community to establish whether the majority of the community wish to go ahead with the purchase.
  • Like the Stronafian Forest vote, only those on the electoral roll are eligible to vote, and 50% of the eligible voters must vote to make the ballot valid. Of that 50% over 50% have to vote in favour for the purchase to go ahead.
  • Even if the ministers grant the community a right to buy on a property the community may decide it is not in its interest to activate that right, and can simply allow the sale of the property to go ahead normally with another party.
  • Often, once a right to buy is established the community and the property owner arrange the sale between themselves without resort to the legislation. This can make the process much shorter.
  • The Community Right to Buy itself lasts for 5 years. If after that period the property hasn’t been put on the market, the community can reapply to have the right extended for a further 5 years. The trust might also decide to let the right lapse and not reapply.

At present the Development Trust is awaiting the minister’s determination on our application to acquire the right to buy on the Glendaruel Hotel. If we are granted a right to buy, and if we decide to move onto the next stage, there will be a thorough and transparent consultation process.

If you have any questions, or are unclear on any points, please don’t hesitate to contact us, we’ll be delighted to hear from you.

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Clachan Glendaruel News Stronafian

St. Modan

One of the privileges of working on some of the projects that the Development Trust have in view, is that sometimes you come across really unexpected slices of information or history. Once such happened today as we examined deed maps pertaining to Stronafian Forest.

We knew there were archaeological remains in the woodland, but what I certainly hadn’t realised was that those remains have a direct correlation to the establishment of our church, and the name given to it and the school.

Here’s a grab of the area:

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Clachan Glendaruel Kilmodan Primary School News Press & Publicity

Our Letter in Support of the Save Kilmodan Primary School Campaign

The Development Trust have just sent our letter in support of the campaign to keep Kilmodan Primary School open to Cleland Sneddon, the head of Education for Argyll and Bute Council. The letter provides a detailed critique of the proposals as they relate to Kilmodan Primary School (and Strachur and Tighnabruaich) as well as looking at the process in its entirety.

This letter has been cc’d to our local councillors Alex MacNaughton, Ron Simon and Bruce Marshall, as well as MSP Jim Mather and MP Alan Reid.

Here is an excerpt of the more general points:

The Colintraive and Glendaruel Development Trust wishes to register its opposition to Argyll and Bute Council’s proposals to close Kilmodan School in the Clachan of Glendaruel for the following reasons:

  • The proposals do not improve the educational standards for the pupils of the school in any way.
  • The proposals commit the children to a school journey of over 45 minutes: which by the council’s own standards is unacceptable.
  • The proposals critically undermine the economic, social and cultural viability of the Clachan of Glendaruel and therefore the community.
  • The proposals create a division in our community, and do so without regard for the electoral and physical boundaries between Colintraive and Glendaruel.
  • The proposals have not been made in consultation with the statutory community bodies.The proposals were not preceded with any attempt to engage with the community on alternative arrangements to closure as the act and guidance indicate.
  • The proposals, which have been put forward for discussion on 2nd November by the council, state in point 8.1 the note that the council decided to go ahead with the consultation process on the 2nd November. This contradicts statements made in letters to parents to all three schools. In our view this undermines the credibility of the whole consultation process.

If you require a different format of this document, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Please note: Michael Russell was not party to any discussion of this issue by the board of the Development Trust and takes and supports no view on it.
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Broadband Glendaruel News Premises Projects

Glendaruel Village Hall gets Broadband!

And a phoneline on 3rd November. We’ll update here when the facility is available for community members to use. We’re hoping holiday-makers will also be able to connect.

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Clachan CRtB Glendaruel Glendaruel Hotel News

Application to register an interest in Hotel passes first stage

The Development Trust received notification today that our application to acquire a right to buy on the Glendaruel Hotel has been accepted by the Scottish Ministers, and that copies of the application have been sent to the present owners. A prohibition on the sale of the property is now in place.

We will now await the response of the owners, and thereafter the determination of the Minister.

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Glendaruel News Premises Projects

Desks and Drawers and Office Space

Today we met with the Glendaruel Village Hall to talk about how the space we’d be using in the back-room would be structured. The idea is to see if we can create a set of shelving and desk space that will fulfill our requirements as a two-day-a-week office, and the Hall’s need for a creche-and-quiet-space for the children. We think we have worked it out, so next steps are to cost, implement and then move in.

Once we have the broadband in place, we are hoping to make it accessible to all residents wanting an internet connection in the hall by supplying a computer in the hallway. Those with laptops will be able to access the wifi.

BTW. One of the more interesting challenges with getting a phoneline and broadband to the hall is that it has never been allocated a postcode — we now have one, PA22 3AE!