The Heritage Lottery Fund has announced a substantial award which will enable the Comrie Development Trust to proceed with a great new project – the repair and refurbishment of 11 Nissen huts to create a self catering development at the community owned land at Cultybraggan Camp, the former POW and army training base by Comrie.
The announcement follows hard on the heels the recent news about the Heinrich Steinmeyer’s legacy to benefit the elderly in Comrie, and it must seem that Christmas has come early for the tiny Perthshire village, but the two exceptional funding stories are entirely unrelated.
The self catering development will assist the Trust’s efforts to become financially sustainable and benefit the local community by establishing sustainable resources from the buildings acquired in the village buy out of the land. There is also an associated Heritage Activity and Training Plan to be established over the next two years.
The mix of funding for the self-catering development has come through the exceptional financial support coming from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Environment Scotland and the SSE Sustainable Development Fund and money raised through a community share offer, with community shareholders to manage the new business through Cultybraggan Heritage Self-Catering Society. This comes at the end of five years of work by CDT, and promises to be a great development for the Comrie area. There will be substantial activity for Comrie Development Trust next year during the tendering, repair and refurbishment phases of the development, and for the Cultybraggan Heritage Self-Catering Society Management Committee in preparing to manage the self-catering business which will open in 2018.
CDT is hoping to finalise funding for two additional staff to help implement both the self catering development and heritage/events development. But, whether or not this extra funding can be found, both the Trust and Self Catering Society Management Committee need additional voluntary help from the area to support their work. Please contact the CDT office by email (cdt@comriedevelopmenttrust.org.uk) or phone (answer-phone message 670769)
Andrew Reid
Trust Secretary
—Read About The Self Catering Plans—
CDT Cultybraggan Heritage Funding Press Release-13-12-16
