Tag Archives: Perth

Argyll link to UK’s first Prime Minister

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Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Free of copyrightLeaders of British Governments were called First Lord of the Treasury, a title they still also hold, until the election of Glaswegian Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in December 1905. Five days after assuming office, he took the superior title Prime Minister.

Born Henry Campbell, he was the youngest of six children of Sir James Campbell, Lord Provost of Glasgow in the 1940s. The Bannerman was added to his name in 1871. It was a condition of the will of his Mother’s uncle, enabling him to inherit the Hutton Court estate in Kent. Continue reading →

Tier 3 Regional Selective Assistance Grants can help small Argyll businesses through recession

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Tier 3 Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) Grants are availabe to small and medium sized businesses in Argyll to help in surviving the recession.

Enterprise Minister, Jim Mather MSP, has announced the extension of the scheme to areas previously excluded from it – Edinburgh; Aberdeen – city and county; Perth; and Kinross. Before now the grants were restricted to small businesses in areas of poor economic growth – like Argyll.

Opening up access to the scheme is one of the actions te Scottish Governemnt is taking to get support systems in place in good time before the recession bites down hard.

Mr Mather says: ‘We have decided to extend eligibility for RSA, a tool which – in the absence of tax-varying powers – can be used by the Scottish Government to help small and medium-sized firms, create and safeguard jobs’.

Earlier in 2008 the Scottish Government approved an increase in aid to small companies from 7.5% up to 10%; and for medium sized firms from 15% up to 20%.

Jim Mather, Argyll’s MSP, will support and campaign for Pilgrim Way from Iona to St Andrews

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Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, has sent For Argyll a note on his personal support for Roseanna Cunningham’s proposal for a Pilgrim Way walking route from Iona to St Andrews. We carried news on this proposal yesterday.

Mr Mather says: ‘This is a timely idea on the threshold of 2009 and the Year of the Homecoming. Walking is an increasingly popular pastime. The establishment of this route would do a great deal to encourage people into a healthy lifestyle and a greater knowledge and appreciation of the magnificent countryside that Scotland has to offer to visitor and native alike.

‘St Andrews was a massive medieval centre for pilgrimage and has played a huge part in the past and present history of the nation while Iona and its association with St Columba is of immense iconic significance in the story of Scotland.

‘The linking of such sites through some of the most attractive scenery of the country has very obvious attraction and would compare favourably with and complement other long distance walks already in place.

‘These walking trails attract  excellent numbers of tourists and there is no doubt that this offers an attractive means of supporting tourism, building on B&B and other businesses and boosting the economy of villages en route.

‘This Pilgrims’ Way is already favoured by several sections of walkways and proposed walkways in place along with lengths of public footpaths at various points along its route. I am sure that with goodwill and co-operation between the various local authorities good progress can be made in taking matters forward during the Year of Homecoming.

‘The campaign has already attracted important support and backing from many sources not least from Cameron McNeish, the leading Scottish mountaineer, trail walker and countryside guru who has enthusiastically endorsed the idea.

‘I will certainly do what I can to maintain the momentum for this concept and I will be contacting other likely supporters to add weight to the campaign’.

Roseanna Cunningham calls for Pilgrim Way from Argyll’s Iona to St Andrew’s

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This seems to be a day of links between Argyll and Perthshire. First we had the news of the first scientific identification of a single source for Perthshire’s River Tay – in the Allt Coire Laoigh burn at Ben Lui in north Argyll.

Now we have the SNP’s Roseanna Cunningham, MSP for Perth, calling for a PIlgrim Way to be completed during Homecoming Scotland 2009. It would run across Scotland from Argyll’s Isle of Iona in the west, through its parent Isle of Mull, following the footsteps of St Columba through Stirling and Perth to St Andrews in Fife on the east coast.

Ms Cunningham rightly says that the so-called Pilgrim Way, following the path of St Columba’s monks, would attract both religious pilgrims and walking tourists – and showcase Scotland’s countryside. She is looking for support from Ministers and Local Authorities to have the route ready during 2009 as an enduring legacy of the Year of Homecoming in 2009.

It would add to Argyll’s superb network of core paths, bringing the additional mystical connection of Iona and St Columba.

Kiltmaking contributes about £350 million to Scottish economy

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Making a £350 million contribution to Scotland’s economy, it is no surprise that leading kiltmakers are concerned to find ways of maintaining standards of craftsmanship in the industry. They are meeting in Perth to agree on a description of the core skills needed to make a traditional kilt and to describe the garment accurately. Their concerns are with maintaining standards of production and public confidence in consistent quality.

A traditional kilt – which is actually a half-kilt – should use 8 yards of fabric with some leeway allowed for differences in size of clients. It should be one and a half inches from the floor when the wearer kneels. It is fully hand sewn.

Colintraive in top ten Scottish Property Rich List, Campbeltown bottoms out in Argyll

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Colintraive Community Garden A Rich List of Scottish streets, areas and towns – calculated by average property values – created and published by Zoopla, a property valuation website, has placed Colintraive. in the Cowal peninsula opposite the Isle of Bute, as the ninth highest value area in Scotland and the fourth highest value town with an average property value given as £290,714. Cairndow in MId Argyll was the only other entry in this category for Argyll, coming eighteenth at £260,968. Campbeltown came twentieth in the lowest value towns in Scotland. Auchterarder in Perth, though, sees two of its streets in first and second place as the highest value streets in the country. They are Caldedonain Crescent whose average property value is £1.8 million; and Balmorl Court coming in at £1.53 million.

Within Argyll, Bridgend on Islay was named as the highest value street at an average of £931,296, a long way ahead of the second placed street, Kilmelford, at £482,136 – interesting in that Islay itself has four postcodes given in the ten lowest value areas. Cairndow came second to Colintraive in the Top Ten highest value areas – but had three postcodes named in the top ten in this category: PA25 at 260, 968; PA26 at £200,700 and PA24 at £171,353. Appin took second place to Colintraive in the highest value towns category, at£223,522.

Campbeltown’s statistics underpinned its real need for regeneration. It came bottom in all three categories of lowest value street, area and town in Argyll. It had four streets in the ten lowest value street category in the county and one seventh from the bottom in all of Scotland. At £38,137 there is a gulf between Bayview in Campbeltown and Bridgend in Islay.

The copyright on the image above – of Colintraive Community Garden – is owned by Lynn M Reid and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Scottish Government launches plan for future of freshwater fishing

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The Scottish Government has announced details of its Framework for Freshwater Fisheries at the Game Fair in Scone in Perth. It puts forward a new strategy for development of freshwater angling on Scotland’s lochs and rivers. We have around 31,000 lochs and 50,000 kilometres of river. The plan aims to support the spectrum of fishery management through funding and legislation (though it should be said at this point that significant new funding is not anticipated at this time). The plan has identified eight priority projects including education, youth coaching, fishery district amalgamation and tourist market research and promotion.

Tony Andrews, Executive Director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust welcomed the initiative as ‘a huge step forward’, saying that ‘it is absolutely essential that we manage our national fisheries in a sustainable way’. In warning the industry and the angling community not to expect direct government funding to develop the sport, he added, ‘There is little doubt that the punter will have to pay’.

Ronnie Picken, Chair of the Scottish Anglers’ National Association which governs trout angling, raising the issue of the £120 million of annual income generated for Scotland by recreational angling, said, ‘I think the government has to look kindly on the sport. But I think is it only right that anglers should contribute to its development and that means brown trout and coarse fishermen having to pay more.

Launching the initiative at Scone, Richard Lochhead, Rural Affairs Minister, noted that it was both significant and encouraging for the future that so many Scottish fishing interests had worked closely together in developing the framework.