Biggar & District Community Heritage Ltd. AGM
on 2nd October 2008.

Membership of the Company now stands at approximately 130. However, we are always keen to welcome new members.

Projects and activities

Our aim remains "to promote the conservation, protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment" of Biggar and the surrounding district.

Little Mitchellwood

Little Mitchellwood is our first of two completed projects.   Those who have visited the wood this year cannot but fail to have been impressed by the show of spring bulbs and later the show of wild flowers – many of them thanks to the raising and planting of Stewart Buchanan.   The work of maintenance and additional planting in the woodland is in the hands of a small band of volunteers under the leadership of Ian Lambie – our project leader.

Apart from day-to day visitors, Little Mitchellwood has been used on a number of occasions for supervised outings by the Beavers, Brownies and the primary School.

On Saturday 6th September we also held a second birthday celebratory event in Little Mitchellwood with a number of organised activities, a band, a BBQ, woodturning and  guided trips to the Little Quarry.

One objective, apart from the fun and the celebration, is to endow youngsters with an appreciation of and respect for nature and the environment of the woodland.   Hopefully it helps to teach them that wild flowers and native vegetation are not weeds and that there are lots of interesting and valuable beasties that inhabit the woodland and meadow – part of what  the grown ups call biodiversity – which has to be treasured as part of nature’s resource and intrinsic to its life-cycle.   One of our future objectives must be to involve more youngsters in our projects and to seek more active participation from the schools.

The Little Quarry (Langlees Road).

The little quarry in Langlees road is on the farm of John and Moira Simpson.  They have agreed to lease it to Biggar and District Community Heritage at a peppercorn rent and to include a strip of land at the top of Little Mitchellwood stretching to the Quarry.   The main aim was to turn the quarry into a wild-life reserve – the terrain makes it less suitable for leisurely walking.   The strip joining the quarry to Little Mitchellwood is also intended to give birds and other wild-life an extended habitat with two linked locations. I hope you have had a chance to visit the little quarry and agree with me that there has been a huge improvement in this site, prior to the work organised through B&DCH the site had been largely abandoned but there was a lot of rubbish littering the site.

Biggar Trails

A second project with which we have been actively associated during the year is the creation of Biggar Trails.  By creating a town trail it is intended to highlight for visitors and local people alike features of Biggar’s past and present. It is hoped that this will be of direct benefit to the community most especially by assisting tourism.

We are working on this project in collaboration with the Civic Society, Friends of Biggar Museums, Biggar Business Group, Biggar Community Council, Biggar Ramblers and South Lanarkshire Council, as well as some interested individuals.  The main input from Biggar & District Community Heritage, apart from participation in all the discussions, was first to successfully re-activate this project which had stalled a year earlier, and secondly to take the lead role vis-à-vis funding bodies and other public bodies by fronting the project.

Thanks to funding negotiated by Joan Keys we were able to employ a professional, Mr James Carter, to prepare a feasibility study.  The report was concluded in December 2007 and was presented to a public meeting at the end of January 2008. The report was entitled “Biggar Heritage Interpretation, Options for Future Development” was a thorough, well researched and inspiring report analysing the existing heritage interpretation provision in the town and setting out potential future projects. Biggar is one of several towns in South Lanarkshire looking at the interpretation of local heritage and in March this year the South Lanarkshire Council commissioned a consultant to prepare a design guide for rural interpretation. The Trails Group met with the consultant to review the current installations in Biggar and discuss the potential for heritage interpretation in the town. The strengths and weaknesses of the existing provision in Biggar and our aspirations for future heritage interpretation feature in the published report.

In addition to the town heritage trail an outer trails proposal has been developed offering a variety of interesting and scenic walks within reach of the town.

A steering group has been formed to take forward the Trails Project and limited funding is in place to cover the publication of a town trails booklet.

The aim for the coming year is to publish the town trails booklet early in 2009, establish our priorities from the report prepared by James Carter and secure funding for both the inner and outer trails projects. 

Wetlands – Session Park fields

At the last AGM we mentioned that we wished to develop the session park fields. These fields are natural wetland and are in the ownership of SLC. Prior to SLC taking over from Clydesdale District Council CDC were proposing to do exactly what we intend to do. (vis a vis develop the fields into a proper managed wetland site with public access). We made our formal proposal to the council about this about 2 years ago.

This project would bring immense benefits for the protection and conservation of bird life, for community enjoyment, it would be an educational resource and of great importance it would be a boon for tourism.   It would complement the pond in the public park.  It would enhance the whole environment of that area.

Our proposals have the support of Biggar Community Council, Scottish Natural Heritage, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Scottish Wildlife Trust.   Biggar Business Group is also sympathetic.

You would have thought that with that degree of support and the fact that our proposals are in line with the Council’s own biodiversity plans, that the Council would have acted quickly to give us the go-ahead and allow us to seek funding from the likes of Scottish Natural Heritage, the Lottery funds and the like.

More recently, (as reported at the last AGM) and after our proposals had been lodged, a group from Biggar Golf Club came up with the idea of draining at least one of these fields (at considerable cost to South Lanarkshire Council and harm to the natural environment) and create a 2- or 3-hole practice golf area for youngsters who are currently accommodated, though less satisfactorily, it is said, on the main golf course.

South Lanarkshire Council appointed a firm of Consultants (Ironside Farar) to look into the matter of the public parks in Biggar.   As we have recently been invited to comment to the consultants (and have done so) we assume that they may consider “Session Park fields” as part of the public parks remit – though this has not been explicitly stated.

We now await the report and the conclusion the Council will draw from it.   We hope the decision will go in our favour.   This would be a high profile project for us but most of all it would bring substantial benefits to Biggar and the countryside beyond.

 

Biggar and District Community Heritage Ltd
Email: info@biggarheritage.co.uk