NEWS

The ACWC has been successful in securing £10,000 Investing in Ideas funding for developing a comprehensive business plan for the purchase of Inchlumpie Wood. The funding will also enable the group to draw up plans for a forest education building at Inchlumpie and explore the feasibility of a community-based woodfuel enterprise amongst other ideas.

We heard from FCS today that the valuation of Inchlumpie is yet to be looked at by the district valuers. This is dissapointing and frustrating as we need this information in order to be able to move forward.

As part of developing our business plan, the directors have been working on producing various site assessments. Initial reports have been produced - An Inventory of Standing Timber; A Habitat Survey; Site assessments of where to develop any building, firewood production area, path network. These will be available to view via the website soon.

We have put together and submitted an application to Investing in Ideas for money to develop our Big Lottery Fund Application for the purchase of Inchlumpie Wood. Hopefully this application will be successful and will enable us to move forward with producing the business plan and other neccessary assessments of the woodland. Between the directors, we have been able to do much of the neccessary work, but this funding will help us with the aspects of the application which need additional funds.

Tim Dearman was elected chairman at the public meeting last night.  The board was further complemented by the election of Pete Carr, Morvern Dyson, and Howard Tolliday.  Matt Stevenson graciously agreed to continue in his role as secretary.  Sincere thanks go to Jeremy Spurway for the dedication and direction he provided during his tenure as Chairman. We are fortunate to be able to continue to rely on his energy and skills in his continuing role as a director of the company.

The first meeting of the new board is scheduled for next week.

Today we met with Forestry Commission representatives Tim Cockerill (Dornoch district manager) and Malcolm Wield (NFLS programme manager) to discuss our plans to apply to buy Inchlumpie wood.
We updated them on our progress, and they provided us with a useful insight into the workings and schedule of the National Forest Land Scheme evaluation panel, which will enable us to hone our application and business plan.
It was mutually agreed that the time is right to jointly instruct the District Valuer to begin the valuation that will set our funding target.
Read more about the National Forest Land Scheme (NFLS) on the FCS website.

The Big Lottery Fund has agreed to consider our bid for funding - our 'Outline Planning Form' succeeded in convincing their evaluators that our project is worth further consideration.