Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: West Lothian case study
Six place-based case studies have been produced as part of Stage 3 of the Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review. This is the West Lothian case study. The others are East Borders, East Moray, Lochalsh and South Skye, Harris and Scalpay, and Orkney.
Community Led Local Development in West Lothian
The Local Action Group is supported by West Lothian Council and receives one of the smallest Community Led Local Development funding allocations relative to other areas. Participants described how the Local Action Group targets its funding towards key issues of importance for communities across the area, and how this may be different to other rural regions:
“In our area we tend to concentrate on what were the former mining areas and support them because they're not rural in the typically sort of agricultural or touristy or whatever sense, but they have a lot of isolation there in a lot of ways that some rural places have... There's things like transport issues that are very different to the transport issues they have in a rural area. They're not miles and miles from anything, but it doesn't mean it's easy for them to get to that.”
While these are long-term goals of Community Led Local Development in West Lothian, participants felt that much of the past five years has been spent ‘firefighting’ the immediate needs relating to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.
Contact
Email: socialresearch@gov.scot