Connecting Communities Along the Carron
Project Description
Connecting Communities Along the River Carron Communities Along the Carron Association was formed in 2010 following a 9 month consultation with over 3000 people in the 16 communities along the River Carron. We spoke to them about their concerns and aspirations for the river and adjacent communities and recorded their comments, wrote a 31 point development plan then got to work. Since then we have achieved more than we could ever have imagined! Our projects were as follows:
- Cleaning the River: professional deep cleaning of 9 miles of the main river and 8 miles of tributaries over two phases which involved: raising £100,000 for professional cleaning services, engaging 3000 community volunteer hours to assist the professional deep clean, recruiting community volunteers to carry out 143 litterpicks accumulating 1023 volunteer hours, organising 9 Corporate Social Responsibility Workdays with 5 large national companies, the complete removal of 40 tons of scrap metal from the river bed, the removal of 55 tons, (1900 bags) of litter and fly tipping from the river and bankings, the removal of 100 tons of timber blockages.
- Improving Water Quality: a partnership working with Scottish Water for discussing and planning water quality improvement measures in river and tributaries.
- Access for walking and cycling: active involvement in fundraising for delivery of 10km of paths and the installation of 4 new bridges at a cost of circa £1Million.
- Environmental and Heritage Education: the delivery of a large number of educational projects in schools consisting of: the engagement of the pupils and staff of Larbert High School to embrace their local SSSI site for outdoor education which resulted in the site gaining LNR status on 8th March 2013, winning the Sustainable School Award for Larbert High at the Scottish Educational Awards ceremony in June 2013, winning the Nature of Scotland Award with Larbert High School at the prestigious RSPB awards ceremony supported by the BBC in Oct 2013, the installation of two sections of the River Carron Nature and Heritage Trail with Heritage signage and seating, being selected by the BBC Cbeebies children’s programme to film an episode of ‘Here and There’ with Mr Bloom showing the projects we do with the children, the delivery of over 1000 John Muir awards in Larbert High School, the delivery of ‘Fish in the Classroom’ projects to 25 primary schools reaching a total of 750 children directly and the involvement of a further 3000 children through information sharing, winning the RSPB ‘Nature Of Scotland’ Community Volunteer Project of the Year 2014, the river becoming a vital part of Central Scotland’s Green Network (CSGN) by linking communities, people, and places, along sustainable walking and cycling routes, winning Rural Scotland Conservation and Environment 2016 award and being shortlisted again in 2017, nominating our local member and historian for the Heritage Angels awards 2016 and him winning the Lifetime Achievement award.
- Winning the MBE for Volunteer groups in 2016 The Queens Award for Voluntary Service.
- In total we have raised over £1million of funding for local projects since 2010.