Response to Action Points Raised at previous Tain and Easter Ross Ward Forums

ACTION 1 - Traffic Management

Les Christie, TECS Technician, advised that there may be still be some temporary road closures in the forseeable future to allow Scottish Water and their contractor, Morrison Construction, to progress with the Portmahomack Water Mains Renewal Project. There will always be an alternative route available for road users.

The contractor will be liasing and advising the local community over particular issues that affect them to cause the least disruption.

If any individual residents have any particular needs they should contact Scottish Water’s customer helpline on 0845 600 8855.

ACTION 2 – Define ‘economic benefit’ for the purposes of LEADER

Every project that receives LEADER funding must be able to demonstrate that there will be some economic benefit to the area in undertaking this project ie that the financial economy in the area will improve as a result of the project. For some projects this will be quite straightforward – an example being that if improvements are made to a heritage attraction, there are likely to be more visitors to the attraction and therefore it would follow that there will be more expenditure in the local economy leading to jobs being safeguarded/created. As the LEADER programme is primarily a community development programme, some projects may find it more difficult to show that there is an economic benefit – for example if a project is funded to publish a community newspaper that is run by volunteers, there is not an obvious economic benefit straight away; however, it could be said that the people who do this volunteering work are gaining skills that will enable them to increase their opportunities for finding paid work, or that the advertising opportunities available in the newspaper would have the potential to increase the trade of local businesses. This is what the programme would recognise as an indirect economic benefit.

At the point where an application for LEADER funding is made, the applicant must be able to make a quantifiable estimate (ie be able to show in numbers) what the likely benefits of the project will be and also to estimate what the benefits to the local economy will be. The local Development Officer will be able to advise people interested in applying for LEADER funding whether the project can demonstrate enough of an economic benefit to be eligible for LEADER funding and any queries in the first instance should be taken to Fiona Cameron, the local officer for this area.