Community Wealth Building

In December 2021, Scottish Rural Action, InspirAlba and the David Hume Institute brought together a roundtable of experienced practitioners to discuss rural and island wealth building strategies and to explore how wealth building policy, particularly the Preston model adopted by the Scottish Government, may be leveraged to strengthen these strategies.

Discussions from this roundtable have been summarised in a report, which was taken to the Advisory Group on Scotland’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

The report highlights that wealth building strategies, such as volunteering, community-led enterprises, tradition bearing and crofting, have enabled communities to flourish for hundreds of years. Re-framing policy could better strengthen these strategies and deliver welcomed economic transformation in rural and island places. 

Read the report
Go Golspie Development Trust Mini Bus
Community Wealth Building: Community Transport

For a while now, rural communities across Scotland have experienced cuts to transport services. This can have a detrimental effect on smaller communities...

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Boys building tower out of crates
Community Wealth Building: Social Enterprises

Over the last forty years, Uist, an archipelago of 7 inhabited islands in the Outer Hebrides, has seen a steady increase in the number of social enterprises being set up and now boasts the highest concentration in Scotland...

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Pipers on a beach
Community Wealth Building: Tradition Bearing

For a number of years now, there has been a growing grassroots movement to revitalise the Gaelic culture. In the early 1980s, Fèis Bharraigh held its first arts and music festival on Barra, a southern Outer Hebridean....

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