CGDTThe Annual General Meeting of the Colintraive and Glendaruel Development Trust will take place at the Glendaruel Village Hall on Sunday 1st October 2017 at 2.00pm. We will be sending out further paperwork shortly. Members welcome!
There will be a community meeting afterwards, from 3pm, with presentations on the various projects the Development Trust has been working on this year. All welcome.
On Wednesday 5th October, CGDT convened our 8th community consultation meeting to discuss the Clachan Hub. While we reported on progress towards the funding application, the main business of the meeting was to consider the draft plans from our architects INCH. To that end, and to continue the dialogue regarding the building, and also, because of technical difficulties in presenting the full treatment at the meeting, CGDT are publishing INCH’s presentation here now.
The document begins with the general design treatment, how it sits in the landscape, and its appearance. It then moves onto exemplars of various kinds around materials, shape and construction. Finally, the presentation discusses the internal layout.
While CGDT is very happy with the general concept, because it embodies all the feedback we have had from the community from our previous 7 meetings, the details are still very much in discussion, particularly the location of the bar / servery area in Building 01 and the access to the changing rooms in Building 02. We would welcome any comment, positive or negative, as well as thoughts on layout and structure. And of course if you have questions, please don’t hesitate!
Here’s the PDF of the entire document, please click to download –> 122-cgdt-hub-initial-proposals-b4
All feedback to cgdt@cgdt.org
Colintraive & Glendaruel Development Trust are recruiting a General Manager for a 1 year part-time post (14 hours)
An exciting opportunity to join a highly successful and ambitious community organization at the heart of Cowal.
The general manager will have responsibilities in the key areas of governance, human resources (HR), public relations and initial project development.
Application forms can be requested by ringing 01700 841 358, emailing cgdt@cgdt.org or downloaded from www.cgdt.org/form
Applications can be emailed to cgdt@cgdt.org or delivered to CGDT, Colintraive Village Hall, Colintraive, PA22 3AS
Funded by Highlands & Islands and the Cruach Mhor Windfarm Trust
community-meeting-8-5th-october-2016
The 8th Community Meeting for the Clachan Project will take place at the Glendaruel Village Hall on Wednesday 5th October at 7pm.
This meeting will give all interested parties the opportunity to look at the progress being made and to feed in their views to the process.
The project architects will be presenting the draft plans for the building and giving an explanation as to how they used the information they got from the previous meetings to influence the layouts they have drafted.
All are welcome to attend.
With regard to the offer made to the community council by the CGDT chair to hold a public meeting to discuss the community project to build two wind turbines in Stronafian Forest, the determination of the Development Trust board on the matter is as follows.
After much discussion the board have decided not to go ahead with a public meeting. There are several reasons for this:
1. The planning application is being processed and further discussion will not add materially to the outcome of the council’s deliberations.
2. We have invested over £120,000 in this project as part of a CARES loan. We have match-funded this investment at a rate of 5% of Forest Development Funds. This is a significant commitment for the trust, with these funds being applied for and granted in the full light of community scrutiny through AGMs, published minutes and community plans. We are bound by that commitment to follow the process through and we believe that while it is everyone’s right to have a view on a planning application, we are disappointed that the community members who are now so strenuously objecting didn’t make their views known at an earlier juncture and in a spirit of consensual community planning.
3. We are further disappointed that these concerns were not raised when the initial planning decision to allow a met mast to be constructed was made.
4. Furthermore, and in the light of 2 & 3 above we are more than content that there were sufficient public consultation meetings over the last 2 years for the community to be fully appraised of the project. The Community Council is well aware that owning and running our own renewables project has been a primary objective for the Trust since 2009.
5. We are not convinced that a further meeting will provide any level of resolution for either those who support the trust’s application or those who do not. We are concerned that if we provided a community forum in this format there is likely to be a deepening of the adversarial climate which has emerged over the issue.
6. The Development Trust has maintained a transparent stance with regard to the project, and have always encouraged members of the community to come to the board, individual directors or our staff to express concerns.
7. As we have said repeatedly at AGMs and other meetings, the Development Trust would rather those whose are dissatisfied with our progress, step up, become directors or members of working groups and help direct the trust’s agenda.
8. We stand by our assertions of the benefit of this development to the whole community: in its ability to offset many of the cuts the council is having to apply; and in its support of the development plan (redrafted in 2013) which the Development Trust is following (and which is published through the CGDT website).
9. Lastly, planning consent if we receive it, is only one step along a much longer road which involves subsidy levels, funding rounds, finance and business planning – all of which will dictate whether or not this is a viable project. To go forward this project must earn the community at least £57,500 per annum on average in combined profit and community benefit.
We are presently awaiting determination over our planning application for the siting to two community wind turbines on Stronafian Forest. The decision should be imminent, but in the meantime we have recently been asked about the financial forecasts that we are working with.
Firstly we should say that we are legally bound by confidentiality agreements which protect the intellectual property rights of our wind turbine developer.
The legal conditions on our working financial forecasts begin with this statement:
By receiving this document, CGDT (“the recipient”) agrees to keep permanently confidential the information contained herein or made available in connection with any further enquiries (the “Information Provided”). The Information Provided may be made available only to a the recipient’s employees and professional advisors directly involved in the appraisal of such information. The Information Provided shall not, either in whole or in part, be copied, reproduced, distributed or otherwise made available to any other party in any circumstances … nor may it be used for any other purpose than that for which it is intended.
Unfortunately, this is not ideal, and it means we can only talk in very general terms about the figures we have been given. Firstly, there are two forms of income which will accrue to the community. There will be community benefit payments (which all windfarm developers pay) which will be at a rate of over £5000 per MW/h. This will be set aside in a trust for the community to use, rather as it has been for the Cruach Mhor Windfarm Trust. There will also be profits earned by the installation as profit by an armslength subsidiary of CGDT’s. These profits will be paid to the Development Trust tax free, given its charitable status, and will amount to at least £50,000 per annum on average over the lifetime of the installation, and probably much more. Of course our forecasts also include variables such as interest rates and the types of loans we will be able to obtain, but by using the arms’length company we limit the liability to CGDT and therefore the community as well. Indeed, the profits I mention take into account all the costs incurred in installation, operation and dismantlement.
Once we have returned the forest to its pristine prewind turbine state we anticipate the community will have had the opportunity to benefit from well over £2M. CGDT has obtained over £2.5M funding for projects thus far from an initial seed investment of c. £50K by the Cruach Mhor Windfarm Trust, the potential therefore for Colintraive and Glendaruel to draw down much greater funding becomes possible with the advent of these turbines and the income they will provide.
When and if we receive consent, we will then be in a position to finalise the figures further, and we hope to give a more detailed answer to everyone. Of course, the delays on the planning decision erode this, particularly after the recent changes made by the Westminster Government on renewables.
Indeed, it is the view of the Wind Turbine working group, that if the project wasn’t able to return an income of £50,000 per annum on average, then it would recommend to the board of the trust that the project shouldn’t go forward, even with consent given.
We thoroughly understand that some members of the community have objections to the appearance of the turbines themselves. However, we would argue, that (a) the benefit accruing to the community is worth it (b) the turbines will be there only for the lifetime of the project, and then taken down. The success on Gigha shows that turbines can work well for a community, providing a basis for real and lasting change.
To show the impact, from perhaps the most critical view, we have taken a screengrab of the wireframe and photomontage showing the visual impact of the turbines. The first image is a closeup, and the second gives the full panorama.
Please note the wireframes do not show the masking effect of vegetation, including the commercial forestry plantation, however the photomontage does. In this case, for this view, only the closest of the turbines is visible over the tops of the trees:
The full panorama is below:
The full set of montages are available at the Development Trust office.
We’re gathering responses to the Clachan Hub project proposals both online and via paper forms which have been distributed to residents in Glendaruel. All members of the community, whether members of the Development Trust or not, are very welcome to fill in this survey. We also welcome the views of business owners, second-home owners and those who visit our community for their holidays.
The survey, with lots more information about the project and the purpose of the survey, is available here.
Thanks for your time!
CGDT, which has been enabling the KCB steering group to move forward, is pleased to say the KCB website is now fully functional and available at www.kcb.scot. We have also included a link in this website’s menu for everyone’s convenience.
The website will be used to update the area on the project’s progress, will take signups to the newsletter (which will help evidence local demand for the service) and publish as much of the documentation as commercial confidentiality allows.
At the Glendaruel Hall on Saturday 16th Jan, 11 am!
The appraisal of the potential sites is now complete and we will score the options against how they meet our criteria.
Our meeting will be facilitated by the consultants – the Design Team and Business planning team, who look forward to meeting everyone.