Dumfries Galloway LEADER Awards 2010

16/11/2010

The Dumfries & Galloway LEADER Rural Awards took place on Friday the 12th of November.

Building on the theme of inspiring positive change, a new 58 page Good Practice Guide was also launched at the event. The guide, which can be downloaded from the download section of this site, represents the 15 shortlisted projects celebrated at the Awards.

For full details of the event including categories and winners see the Press Release Independent expert judges from outwith the region made visits during the summer to all shortlisted projects and announced on the night the project which they felt deserved special recognition from those short listed by Dumfries and Galloway LEADER Local Action Group. Julian Pace, Director of Rural Operations for Scottish Enterprise was first to announce the project he had chosen for special recognition in the Wealthier and Fairer Scotland category which recognised projects that had in some way contributed towards the development of a diverse and dynamic business base within the region.

Motorcycle Tourism, based in Moffat was the winner in this category. Maura Walsh, Chief Executive of IRD Duhallow, County Cork in Ireland was impressed by the high level of entries in her category Smarter Scotland. Maura was looking at projects which encouraged the promotion of a learning and skilful region or those projects which added value to local products in a significant way. The award was won by the Queensberry Initiative based at Wallacehall Academy in Thornhill. Pat Kirby from the project was delighted to receive this recognition, commenting “Winning the D& G Leader Smarter Scotland rural award was a real boost for our project. We are particularly pleased that the partnership working which is at the heart of our project was recognised by the judges - and the impact that we are having on the lives of young people in our area.”

The Healthier Scotland category was being judged by Sarah Skerratt, Senior Researcher at the Scottish Agricultural College (now SAC). Sarah was looking at the contribution shortlisted projects made towards creating opportunities to improve health within rural communities and projects which helped to establish or strengthen links between communities and the land around them. The project chosen for special recognition was The Moorland Education project based in Langholm. Education Officer, Cat Barlow of the Langholm Initiative was very proud to have her project recognised by LEADER and said “We are over the moon to win this award! It is a fabulous recognition of all the Moorland Education Project’s achievements and the hard work and support of our volunteers and project partners. Hopefully this will help put Langholm on the Map! “ The Safer and Stronger category judge was Director of the Rural Programme for Carnegie Trust UK, Kate Braithwaite. Kate was looking at projects which encouraged better links between generations or projects which fostered positive inter-cultural relationships and projects which clearly demonstrated a strengthening of community spirit and civic pride in rural communities. After careful consideration, the Corehead Building Biodiversity with People project was awarded special recognition in this category. Selecting from shortlisted projects in the Greener Scotland category was the Chief Executive of the Rural Development Council in Northern Ireland, Martin McDonald.

Projects in this category were scored on how they contributed towards the safeguarding, improvement and promotion of habitats for wildlife or which demonstrated and promoted a greener lifestyle in some way at community level. Creating CSmart Organisations was chosen to best represent this category and received special recognition from the Judge.

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