About
The western area of the Kintyre peninsular in Argyll, Scotland, has a dedicated team of Community Councillors elected by Residents of the locality.
West Kintyre Community Council extends from Whitehouse in the north to Kilkenzie in the south of Kintyre.
Despite the challenging economic climate over this period, we have as a community worked with our locally elected members, and partners such as Argyll & Bute Council, Transport Scotland, HIE, BT and the Windfarm Trust to name but a few, achieved much but by no means all the targets the community set out to achieve. However, as with all “Living Plans” during this period other priorities such as the damage caused by flooding in Clachan have also been tackled, with the repairs helped by majority funding via the Windfarm Trust.
A brief resume of what was achieved follows:
- New signage is now in place in all villages
- The A83 has seen many improvements although there is still some way to go
- Tayinloan playing fields has a new drainage system
- Broadband connectivity has been improved in some areas but remains a priority to be lobbied for across the whole area
- Mobile phone coverage remains an issue throughout the area, we will continue to lobby for improvements
- Muasdale surgery remains open
- Tayinloan toilets remain open and have been upgraded due to a ground-breaking agreement between Argyll & Bute Council, the Community Council and Windfarm Trust
- Empty buildings and affordable housing remain a priority
The above was not an exhaustive list but indicated some of the community achievements of WKCC.
To ensure our Village and Church halls remained viable and sustainable for the foreseeable future the Windfarm Trust provided funding towards the fitting of solar panels to three village halls and one church hall plus the same funding to the other church hall for the installation of energy efficiency measures.
In September 2016 with the help of the local Community Development Officer. a short-term focus group consisting of residents, Community Councillors, local businesses and local Councillors was set up tasked with reviewing previous action plans and gathering community priorities for further action.
There followed the distribution of a community survey with a freepost return address for ease of return by residents.
With rural depopulation continuing to be an issue throughout the area new questions asking for ideas on how we as a community might encourage young people and families to stay/move into the area, plus ideas for enterprise and development within the area were included in the survey.
WKCC scrutinise development applications for a range of Industries in conjunction with Argyll & Bute Councillors and the Authorities Administrative Team.
The Community Councillors are not remunerated for the work that that they do, and are also involved in supporting local Civic & Community Regeneration bodies.
Some excellent ideas were put forward and incorporated into the plan for 2017-2023 followed by our latest Community Action Plan which you can download below