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News & Media
Press Release - Dec 2022
Funding boost for Rocks & Wheels project
Dalbeattie Community Initiative is delighted to receive the news that our Rocks and Wheels project will benefit from Dumfries and Galloway Council’s successful bid to the Levelling up fund.
This funding will now catapult the project from vision and design into a reality for Dalbeattie. This amount of investment in our community will create real transformational change.
The development of our outdoor activity centre project, Rocks and Wheels, will see the redundant school buildings transformed into an outdoor activity centre boasting indoor bouldering, 60-bed hostel, outdoor pump track, training and community rooms, and outdoor civic space. The unique location of the site, at the entrance to Dalbeattie Town Wood, allows easy access to the 7stanes mountain bike trail and core path 20 leading to Kippford to encourage new and exciting biking and water sport activity.
The centre will create sustainable employment and training programmes; and its long-term reinvestment will empower our community ensuring future generations can benefit from the project too.
This centre will create an attractive destination for visitors to explore our area and support the further development of outdoor adventure pursuits; we hope it will act as a catalyst for local businesses and stimulate new enterprises.
Since the project’s inception in 2017, many local people have assisted in the development of ideas and to refine the project into a feasible business model – this funding success is testament to their hard work, effort and persistence. The hard work starts now to take our vision and make it a success, but the Initiative is up for the challenge and looks forward to this exciting new chapter.
Michelle McRobert
CEO, Dalbeattie Community Initiative
Dame Barbara Kelly becomes Rocks & Wheels' Patron
Dame Barbara Kelly has accepted an invitation to become the Patron of Dalbeattie's Rocks & Wheels Project. Dame Barbara has held a number of senior public appointments and her main interests lie in consumer affairs and in rural and environmental issues.
A major part of her working life was home-based as a partner in a mixed farming enterprise. She raised four children, including a child with Cystic Fibrosis. Her early work was necessarily through the voluntary sector and it was not until the tragic death of her son in 1985 that she returned to work beyond the family business. During that time, she was much involved in SWRI and was National Vice Chair in the early 1980s.
Dame Barbara has long been an advocate for justice, fairness and choice, as Chairman of the Scottish Consumer Council (1985-1990), as Equal Opportunities Commissioner for Scotland (1991-95) and as Chairman of the UK Architects Registration Board.
She was a trustee of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and was Convenor of the Millennium Forest for Scotland Trust which won multi-million-pound funding (over £30M) from the Millennium Commission for the re-establishment of native woodland in Scotland. She was Chairman of the Robertson Trust, Scotland’s largest Giving charity. For thirteen years, she was Convenor of the Crichton Foundation and now chairs the Crichton Campus Leadership Group set up in 2013 to coordinate activity and joint working at the Crichton. She was a Board member of D&G College for many years and was recently made an Honourable Fellow. In addition,, she helped set up the £11M project and was Chairman of the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust up until its official opening.
Dame Barbara was also the first woman Director of the Clydesdale Bank plc, a founder Director of Scottish Enterprise and a main Board member of Scottish Natural Heritage. She was a member of the BP plc Scottish Advisory Board, of the BT Scottish Advisory Board and the Scottish Post Office Board.
Honoured by the Queen, she was made Dame in 2007. She was a Deputy Lieutenant of Dumfriesshire and holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Strathclyde 1995, Aberdeen 1997 and Glasgow 2002, Bell College 2005, Queen Margaret University 2005 and University of the West of Scotland, 2012. She was also made a Freeman of the City of London in 2002.
Ian Wilbur, Rocks and Wheels Chair, said: "We are delighted that Dame Barbara Kelly has accepted our invitation to become our first honorary patron. Dame Barbara has always been passionate about Dalbeattie and for her to support the Rocks and wheels project is wonderful, especially the fact we are utilising the old primary school where she attended as a girl."
Dame Barbara Kelly