RWE NRL Publishes Caithness Community Profile

7th August 2013

RWE NRL has published online the results of the Caithness converstaion research run several weeks ago in the county. Foundation Scotland carried out the research for RWE NRL to find out the views of communities, businesses and key local stakeholders as to how they thought community benefit could be used to the best advantage for the area as whole and local communities.

By doing the research RWE NRL hoped that communities, developers and other stakeholders might better identify and plan how and where to direct future community investment arising from community funds coming from wind farm developers.

The main discussions and research areas included what the Caithness community consider is currently working well and what they consider needs improving in Caithness, what future community and investment could support and how this investment should be managed.

The research has led to a Caithness Community Profile which is now complete and has become known as the 'Caithness Conversation'. the document now published online covers all the feedback from the research plus it draws together many other documents and information relating to Caithness all in one place which is very useful to anyone looking at the area for a range of reasons both social and economic.

RWE NRL has set out a seriesof NEXT STEPS to move things forward -

*** To support the formation of an initial working group comprising representatives from the different geographical communities and sectors to gather opinion on the momentum of the 'Caithness Conversation',

*** This Group could also consider how best to share practice and learning about developing and delivering community benefit across Caithness communities.

*** Foundation Scotland will invite other Developers to a roundtable discussion on community benefit in Caithness with the aim of sharing the information gathered in the 'Caithness conversation'. This group might also have an appetite to explore potential ways developers could work more collaboratively to better support Caithness communities, without compromising commercail business ambitions.

A meeting of the working group and developers is expected to take place in Autumn 2013.

See the full Caithness Converstion Community Profile HERE