£100m awards announced

AWARDS amounting to just under £100 million were announced yesterday under the latest round of Scottish Rural Development Programme.

These cover support for more than 1,000 projects throughout the length and breadth of the country. Projects to have funding approved include the conversion of a farm steading near Forres into a rural enterprise centre which will bring 50-70 jobs to the area; a new restaurant and guesthouse for the Western Isles and a plan to improve wildlife habitats in Angus.

Rural secretary Richard Lochhead said: "Rural Priorities is of considerable importance to Scotland's Economic Recovery Programme, with 34.6m of this new funding going directly to farming and rural businesses to help improve competitiveness."

This is the sixth round of approvals from the Rural Priorities scheme and 257.8m has now been approved, funding around 3,600 projects in rural Scotland.