£9.7million support fund for Scotland’s coastal communities

Coastal communities are sharing in £9.7 million of support to help them respond to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The revenue has been generated by the Scottish Crown Estate’s marine assets and comes from the second year of devolved management of Crown Estate assets.

It will be allocated to the 26 local authority areas which have coastlines, with funding based on their share of the adjacent sea area.

The Scottish Government said the amount is up by more than £2 million on last year and is more than double the funding available under the old Coastal Communities Fund.

Environment and Land Reform Secretary Roseanna Cunningham said: “Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on communities across the country and particularly those people and businesses living and working in our coastal areas, which are often reliant on tourism.

“That is why we have widened the remit of these funds to include direct support, where necessary, to coastal businesses and third sector organisations.

“We have also worked to allocate this year’s funding as swiftly as possible to enable local authorities to help these organisations through the economic shock caused by the pandemic, and direct resources to where it is most needed in support of a wellbeing economy.”

She added: “It will greatly help our coastal areas as we embark on a challenging period of recovery from the pandemic for all parts of our economy.”

Steven Heddle, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) environment and economy spokesman, said: “Cosla has worked with Marine Scotland to finalise arrangements for distribution of net revenues and welcomes their timely allocation to Local Authorities.

“We continue working on the longer-term review to develop an appropriate approach for the future distribution methodology.”

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