Agenda item

Consider 5 applications for funding:

(a)      Eat Sleep Ride;

(b)      Berwickshire Marine Reserves;

(c)      Sea the Change;

(d)      Re-Tweed; and

(e)      Outside the Box

(Assessments attached along with Berwickshire Funding Table)

5.1       The Chairman advised that there was a similar problem to the last time when the Fund was oversubscribed, with £33,988 available and applications totalling £62,869.  Gillian Jardine, Locality Development Co-ordinator, presented highlights for each project.  The applicants were available at the meeting to answer questions, and then left the meeting prior to decisions being made.

(a)     Eat, Sleep and Ride

          This project sought funding of £24,267 to start ‘Take the Reins’, a personal development programme designed to provide a learning opportunity to high school children aged 13-17 years who were not in full-time education.  The programme would be delivered over 26 weeks, with space for 12 young people.  In response to a question, it was confirmed that spaces would be offered to young people from Berwickshire first and then opened to the rest of the Borders. 

(b)     Berwickshire Marine Reserve

This project sought funding of £12,511 to contribute to the costs of employing a Project Officer and project costs for “Conserve Your Marine Reserve”.  This Citizen Science project would engage users of the Marine Reserve to help identify pressures that threatened the survival of marine ecosystems and promote people’s ability to appreciate and protect it. 

(c)     Sea the Change

This project sought funding of £7,684 to commission a feasibility study to explore solutions to changes to Coldingham beach infrastructure which were identified in an Access Audit report.  The 5 key issues identified were access to the disabled parking, beach wheelchair storage, disabled toilets, the beach and the boardwalk.   The Area Partnership expressed some concern about the cost of the feasibility study and queried whether funds would be better spent on the solutions rather than the feasibility study.        

(d)     Re-Tweed

This project sought funding of £5,504 to pilot the delivery of a minimum of two (maximum three – depending on resources) 6-week intensive skills based training (one day/week) in Berwickshire village halls in communities where no other provision existed – Cockburnspath and Westruther or Longformacus.  It was confirmed that the Board had talked about this for some time with various organisations, trying to encourage more young people into the mix.  A course had taken place in Cockburnspath but due to social distancing requirements, only 4 places were available for the 11 applicants.  The aim was to take these courses to smaller communities in Berwickshire where no other provision existed.

(e)     Outside the Box

This project sought funding of £12,903 for staffing costs for a project to reconnect individuals with each other and encourage and support people back to attending group sessions.  The aim would be to deliver 1 to 2 sessions (physical or virtual) per group to raise confidence of individuals, maintain connections and reduce isolation.  In response to a question it was confirmed that the organisation worked with individuals to identify gaps in support and encourage peer support so after one or two sessions groups could be self sustaining.

5.2       Members of the Area Partnership considered the applications and discussed whether a reduced amount of funding could be offered to applicants and whether this would have an impact on projects.  While officers were able to work with groups on other funding sources, the availability of these could not be guaranteed.  The applicants then left the meeting and members of the Area Partnership considered each of the various projects in turn.

AGREED to the following:

(a)     to award Re-Tweed £5,504 from the Community Fund for skills based training training;

(b)     to award Berwickshire Marine Reserve £12,511 from the Community Fund for the “Conserve Your Marine Reserve” project;

(c)     to award Sea the Change £4,000 from the Community Fund towards access works at Coldingham Beach;

(d)     to award the remainder of the Community Fund (c. £11,973) to Eat, Sleep, Ride towards the “Take the Reins” project; and

(e)     to not award any funding to Outside the Box.