A new role has been approved at South Lanarkshire Council to support communities with funding.
At the executive committee meeting last week, councillors welcomed the proposal to employ an economic development officer to help communities manage possible funding from the Renewable Energy Fund.
Councillor Mark Horshman (Clydesdale South) praised the position, saying he 'welcomed' it.
He added: "What we find in these local communities is that they don’t have access to someone to develop the large projects, or don’t know where to start.
"We do get the smaller projects and a lot of them fall by the waste side because they’ve become too complex for the groups to carry on.”
The Renewable Energy Fund (REF) is grants given to local communities from almost 41 wind farms and wind turbines in the area.
The development officer will serve a 32-month maximum term and will help communities improve their capacity to develop projects.
This is due to some communities in the area having access to over £1m annually through the fund and facing challenges when it comes to developing more complex and impactful projects that would fully benefit from the funds available.
The development officer will work with communities to prioritise larger projects and support communities to develop complex proposals to a stage that meets the funders requirements.
The post holder will also work between local communities, funders, landowners and agencies including NatureScot to help support community projects including nature restoration, active travel and recreation in the area as well as other priorities.
The concept of an economic development officer came from council discussions with Greencoat Capital, who are specialists in the renewable energy sector and investors in the fund, who agreed that a portion of the funding should be used for an officer to help support projects and deal with REF applications in the eligible area.
NatureScot has also agreed to contribute £5000 to the post in 2022 to 2023 to help direct community benefit funds from the wind energy developments to projects which deliver the most benefit for local communities.
Councillor Alex Allison (Clydesdale East) questioned the need for a development officer.
He said: “They are looking to employ someone through the council as a development officer.
"Many of the other areas have taken this role on like the local community councils, so why have you gone down this line when CC are able to fund this through the funds anyway?”
To counter these concerns, it was highlighted that some community councils are finding it difficult to fund someone to support them, by coordinating more centrally through the council there will be more activity.
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