November 2018

Newsletter

Welcome to the November Newsletter
We are getting near to the deadline for the purchase of the old Bank of Scotland building and we must have the money in place by the end of the year. In this newsletter we have some great news on not only the capital purchase funding but also the development funding to carry out the conversion.

In this edition of the newsletter:

• Scottish Land Fund confirms our 95% purchase grant
• SSE Sustainable Development Fund confirms grant to develop the Bunk House
• Town Centre Living Fund grant approved to support the conversion of the flat and ground floor accessible accommodation
• GoFundMe initiative to raise the balance of the purchase price

Scottish Land Fund Grant Confirmed

The Scottish Land Fund has approved our grant request for 95% of the purchase price of the old Bank of Scotland building.  This is a major step forward and now work is underway to secure funding for the 5% balance which means raising £6,000.  We have created a GoFundMe page to allow people to donate, further details are later in this newsletter.  We had hoped the Bank of Scotland would offer a 5% discount on the agreed purchase price to offset their anticipated costs if taking the property to the open market, but it was declined.

It will be full steam ahead now to complete the purchase of the former bank building early in the new year, and then the really hard work begins.....

SSE Sustainable Development Fund Grant Confirmed

Hot on the heels of the news about the SLF funding comes more good news from SSE. 

We had applied for funds to support the development costs of the community space that will include the bunkhouse.

Dumfries and Galloway Sustainable Development Fund congratulated us on "this outstanding achievement" as competition for funding was extremely high with 21 applications received and a total request value in excess of £952,000.   We had asked for £80,000 capital and £10,000 revenue funding and they have agreed to give us the £80,000 capital funding for the bunkhouse development.

Town Centre Living Fund Application Success

The intention of this fund is to increase the supply of affordable housing in the region's town centres and settlements by bringing empty properties back into use.

We will be setting rent levels in line with those expected from Registered Social Landlords and within the levels for the Local Housing Allowance, which ensures affordability for residents as per our priority of offering alternative options for affordable letting in the Wigtown and Bladnoch area.

D&G Council's Communities Committee were pleased to announce that WBCI has been  awarded £60,000 from the Town Centre Living Fund to support the work necessary to convert the three bedroom flat and single bedroom ground floor apartment.

GoFundMe to raise 5% of purchase price

We hoped that the Bank of Scotland might assist the community purchase by agreeing a discount on the purchase price but they have declined.  The Initiative therefore needs to raise about £8000 to complete the purchase (£6,000 to complete the purchase valuation price and £2,000 for legal and additional purchase costs).

WBCI has set up a GoFundMe web page to request donations to help raise this amount.  Without this final amount of money we cannot complete the purchase of the building.

Please donate to support us and pass on the link below via Social Media, email or whatever means you can think of to encourage others to do the same.

https://www.gofundme.com/wigtownbankbuilding

Thank you for supporting the Wigtown and Bladnoch Community Initiative.