This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Euro funding for South of Scotland
10/12/2004
European funding worth £1.6 million to help create jobs and fund new community facilities in the South of Scotland was announced today.
Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson announced the money during a visit to the Upper Nithsdale Arts & Crafts Community Initiative in Sanquhar.
He said the funding will help tackle unemployment and create new homes for the arts, new opportunities for leisure, and new accommodation to help small businesses grow.
Mr Wilson said:
"This is good news for people across the South of Scotland. It will help create new facilities for many communities but will also boost the local economy. Unemployment blights people's lives. This funding will help provide training and create jobs that create a way out of the vicious circle that life without a job can be. In doing so it will also help us reach our key aim - ensuring the economy continues to grow.
"Projects such as the Arts and Crafts centre I am visiting today in Sanquhar provide excellent evidence of the real difference European funding can make. The £135,263 funding will be used to help to create a multifunctional centre for arts, crafts and culture. The new building will provide a kitchen, café and a shop selling local craft materials. More importantly, it will provide jobs for local, people who are long-term unemployed.
"I believe many projects approved in this latest round of funding will have a similarly positive effect. I am consistently impressed by the innovative and exciting projects I am able to approve European funding for. And visiting these projects always provides a striking reminder of the difference the money makes both to individuals and whole communities."
Examples of the projects approved in the latest round of funding include:
- Dumfries and Galloway Leisure Complex will receive £320,501. The grant will support construction of conference/exhibition/event facilities to be located within Dumfries & Galloway Leisure Complex (DGLC). The complex will be built in Dumfries town centre and will comprise wet/dry leisure and sport facilities as well as venue facilities. The optimum capacity of the venue facilities will be 1200 seated, and the target market will be sport-related conferences, events, concerts, exhibitions and large-scale performances. As the facility will replace the Loreburn Hall, established events such as a wide range of dogs shows, flower shows and craft fair etc. will transfer to the new facility, with the ability to provide additional accommodation and therefore increase the capacity of individual events.
- Mansfield Workshops, Hawick will receive £160,046. The project involves the creation of 4 new workshops in 2 facing blocks on a site close to the town centre. The units will provide 490 square metres of new floorspace and are flexibly designed to allow two units to be linked together. A small, secure yard will also be provided for letting to one of the prospective tenants. The site will have a dedicated access road and parking area. The site is within a key regeneration area of Hawick, and the workshops will be able to offer space suitable to attract a range of business uses.
The South of Scotland Objective 2 programme covers Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders. The whole area is fully eligible with the exception of the Tweedale area around Peebles which is now in transition, reflecting the greater relative prosperity in this area. The Programme area has a joint population of just over 246,000 stretching from the east to the west coasts of the South of Scotland.
The Programme will deliver some €73 m of support, with the aim of promoting sustainable economic development which is founded on key principles of enterprise, learning and social justice.
The Programme will support the development of: Innovative, competitive small and medium sized enterprises, strategic business locations and sectors and, new opportunities for local communities
The Programme aims to achieve the following main targets: 5000 new jobs and 1100 jobs safeguarded.
Eight rounds of eligible projects have been completed totalling £35.04m to date