£45,000 funding boost for new facilities at Rattray Community Garden

Date: Tuesday 21 January

There were celebrations in Blairgowrie and Rattray recently as Rattray Community Garden, a Blairgowrie and Rattray Development Trust (BRDT) project, was awarded more than £45,000 in funding support.

The Gannochy Trust has awarded the community garden £27,500, and Perth and Kinross Council’s Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) fund has awarded £17,707 in support of the initiative.

The funding will go towards the costs of renovating a single-story building at the site, creating a new secure storage shed, a general-purpose room, toilets and a small kitchen for volunteers and visitors to the garden. It also covers the demolition of a derelict building on the site which will clear space for parking and an additional storage shed.

The latest stage of the development of Rattray Community Garden is now well under way and is expected to be complete within the next few weeks.

Over the last year, volunteers have worked hard to ensure that the garden is a welcoming, relaxing area where volunteers and local groups can meet, supporting their health and wellbeing and reducing social isolation. It offers a place where people can develop gardening skills and observe wildlife.

The garden also protects and enhances an area of greenspace in the town, grows produce that can be sold at subsidised prices in BRDT’s BaRI Food and Refill Store as part of the BaRI Food Project’s ongoing efforts to reduce food costs and encourage the growing of food locally, aims to increase biodiversity with careful management and planting, and will help to facilitate intergenerational activity and educational sessions.

The new facilities will benefit everyone in the community who visits the garden.

Rattray Community Garden volunteer and chair of Blairgowrie and Rattray in Bloom, William Wilson, welcomed the funding news.

He said: “We are hugely grateful to The Gannochy Trust and to Perth and Kinross Council for their very generous donations, which will enable us to complete the building work at the community garden. “Rattray Community Garden is open to everyone in the community and provides an open space for people to come and relax, enjoy the garden or help out with the activities – everything from planting and weeding to harvesting and using the produce.

“The garden is currently open twice a week, as well as for open days and events and other activities, and has cultivated a real community feel over the last year or so amongst those who visit.

“The completion of this project will provide additional facilities that

will benefit everyone who uses and visits the garden, and will enable us to offer a wider range of activities to more people. “On behalf of all of us involved with Rattray Community Garden, I would therefore like to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported us, it is much appreciated and will make a real difference.”

David Smythe, Community-Led Local Development Local Action Group Chairperson (CLLD LAG) commented: “The award of £17,707 towards this community project is one of several benefitting from a portion of £12 million of CLLD and Scottish Government funds available for the development of rural communities and rural enterprise until March 2025 in Scotland. Rural Perth and Kinross has been allocated £826,637 to boost community involvement and empowerment. It is a fantastic opportunity for us all and we are pleased we have been able to support it.”

Andy Duncan, chief executive of the Gannochy Trust, commented: “The work undertaken at Rattray Community Garden aligns extremely well with the Trust’s aims. The additional facilities that will be created through this funding will widen the range of community groups and individuals who can access the garden, and will support health and wellbeing, reduce social isolation and help develop gardening and food growing skills. We were delighted to be able to support this very worthwhile cause.”

Rattray Community Garden is based in what used to be a walled garden for Mount Ericht House, just off Balmoral Road. The garden, which has been home to award-winning environmental group Blairgowrie and Rattray in Bloom for a number of years, was secured as a community asset for the town and purchased by Blairgowrie and Rattray Development Trust (BRDT) with support from the Scottish Land Fund in 2021.

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 2020.

Since then, a team of volunteers has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to develop the site, and around £180,000 has been raised for the purchase and development of the garden.

Work has included clearing the site, turning over the ground and removing stones to increase the productivity of the land, installing utilities including a water supply, drainage and electricity, creating a network of paths to ensure that all parts of the garden are accessible for all abilities and ages, repointing the walls, replacing unstable brickwork and putting in new coping stones, installing new gates and fencing, re-slating one of the outbuildings, reskinning the existing polytunnels, building a new greenhouse and raised beds, and creating 23 beds for planting using a ‘no-dig’ approach.

The development of the community garden has been supported by the Scottish Land Fund, the Mushroom Trust, the Scottish Government’s Shovel Ready fund administered by Development Trust Association Scotland, PKC’s Green Living Fund, the Lintel Trust, the Jimmie Cairncross Charitable Trust which supports a wide range of charitable activities in the Perth and Kinross region, Blairgowrie and District Rotary Club, Blairgowrie Lyric Choir, Interplan Panel Systems, Blairgowrie-based Graham Environmental Services, Cunningham Carpets, the A Proctor Group and the Friends of Rattray Community Garden.

The garden is open every Wednesday and Saturday from 10am to 1pm.

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

For further information or media enquiries, please contact Clare McMicking on 07514 343 042 or media@brdt.org.uk Supported by Rural Perth & Kinross Community-Led Local Development (RPK CLLD) Local Action Group (LAG) with funding from the Scottish Government’s Rural Community-Led Local Development Fund 2024/25, part of the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP).