Cash boost for Rattray Community Garden

Date: Friday 15 March

News Release

March 2024

Cash boost for Rattray Community Garden

Volunteers behind the new Rattray Community Garden are delighted to have received over £6000 in funding support for the initiative in recent weeks.

Last week, Rattray Community Garden won £2576 from Perth and Kinross Council’s Green Living Fund to cover some of the ongoing running costs of the garden, including utilities, signage and water collection.

It was one of 41 community projects across the region to have been awarded a share of some £225,000 to help tackle the cost of living crisis and climate change. Eligible applications to the fund were voted for by members of the public with those receiving the most votes awarded the funding.

Rattray Community Garden has also been awarded £3000 from The Jimmie Cairncross Charitable Trust which supports a wide range of charitable activities in the Perth and Kinross region, £500 from Blairgowrie and District Rotary Club, and £100 from Blairgowrie-based Graham Environmental Services to go towards the costs of renovating a single-story building at the site, creating a new storage shed, a general-purpose room, toilets and a small kitchen for volunteers and visitors to the garden.

Those involved with the garden are keen to ensure that the local community is able to benefit fully from its potential, and are working hard on its transformation into a welcoming, relaxing area for people of all ages where groups can meet, supporting health and wellbeing, reducing social isolation, developing gardening skills, and observing wildlife.

And they have thanked everyone who voted for the garden in the Green Living Fund for the support.

Rattray Community Garden management group volunteer Stuart Nichol said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded this funding, which will enable us to cover the ongoing running costs of the garden this year as we continue efforts to develop it further.

“On behalf of all of us involved with Rattray Community Garden, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for us as part of the Green Living Fund process, it is much appreciated and will make a real difference.”

Stuart went on to express thanks to the organisations and businesses that have supported the wider appeal for funds to enable building work to take place at the garden.

He said: “We have been working on some very exciting plans for the development of the derelict buildings at the site which will transform the facilities we are able to offer volunteers and visitors to the garden, and are hugely grateful to The Jimmie Cairncross Charitable Trust, Blairgowrie and District Rotary Club and Graham Environmental Services for their contributions to this.

“Some work on the buildings has now started, but there is still a long way to go and we are continuing to explore further potential sources of funding that will allow us to complete the project.”

Rattray Community Garden is based in what used to be a walled garden for Mount Ericht House and has been home to Blairgowrie and Rattray in Bloom for a number of years.

The garden is a space where vegetables, fruit and cut flowers will be produced for distribution to the community and volunteers and for sale to support the running costs of the project.

The purchase and redevelopment of the community garden was highlighted as something local people wanted as part of the community action plan consultation exercise carried out in Blairgowrie and Rattray in 2018 and updated in 2021.

Since the land was purchased for the community by Blairgowrie and Rattray Development Trust with assistance from Blairgowrie and Rattray in Bloom and the Scottish Land Fund, a small team of volunteers has been working towards ensuring that the site is safe and accessible for the wider community. Utilities have been installed, the polytunnels have been refurbished, a new greenhouse has been built, a number of raised beds have been created and the relevant permissions required to start refurbishment work on one of the buildings have been secured.

To find out more about Rattray Community Garden, including how you can get involved in supporting the work it is doing or how you can benefit from the new facilities, follow the Facebook page by searching for ‘Rattray Community Garden’, visit the website at www.rattraycommunitygarden.org.uk or email info@rattraycommunitygarden.org.uk

ENDS For further information or media enquiries, please contact Clare McMicking on 07514 343 042 or media@brdt.org.uk

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