Funding boost for historic land buyout for eco moorland project
A small community in the south of Scotland that hope create a vast new nature reserve have been given a £500,000 funding boost.
It's thought to be one of Scotland's largest community buyouts and would see the Langholm Initiative purchase more than 10,000 acres - valued at £6 million – from Buccleuch’s Borders Estate.
Project leaders say a £500,000 pledge from the Dunblane-based Carman Family Foundation had kept its buyout bid alive after the plans came under threat.
The initiative was recently awarded £1m from the Scottish Land Fund, a government fund that backs buyouts, and is now embarking on a crowdfunding campaign to raise the remaining cash they need.
They project would see a vast nature reserve created on the land, to tackle climate breakdown, boost nature restoration and support community regeneration.
"The Carman Family Foundation’s tremendous £500,000 support for the Langholm Moor Community Buyout is a major boost, and couldn’t have come at a better time. It really keeps the project on track. This kind of support makes all the difference, and we’re hugely grateful,” said Margaret Pool, chair of the Langholm Initiative.
Bill Carman, Trustee of the Carman Family Foundation, said: “We’re delighted to be helping bring this special area into the ownership of people who take biodiversity – both flora and fauna – seriously.
"Langholm Moor deserves to be protected and enhanced, because it is crucial that we all help the natural environment stabilise and re-establish, but also because it will act as an excellent example of how humans can work together in selfless communities.
"We think it is really important that the buyout succeeds, and would urge allwho read this to contribute as much as they can.”
The Langholm Initiative is asking the Scottish Land Fund to extend its October deadline.
Executive Chairman of Buccleuch, Benny Higgins, has also written to the Scottish Land Fund to express Buccleuch's support for an extension, which would increase the prospects of a successful and workable outcome in the community buyout discussions.