On the 24th January, we sent out Ballot papers to all residents of the community aged 18 and over. The intention is to assess the support within the community for aquiring a community woodland. We are also asking that those who support the idea of creating a community woodland rank the four top woodland options in order of preference, and express any preference between either purchasing a woodland or entering into a management agreement.

Accompanying the ballot paper is additional information to help inform your decision making process. You can find out more here

Anthony Chamier has stood down as vice-chair of the committee. We are extremely grateful for all his efforts in progressing the project thus far and regret the loss of his energetic, measured and diplomatic contribution.  Hopefully, the demonstrable progress and the engaging challenge of bringing the project to a successful conclusion will attract new members of the committee; meetings are held on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month, at 8pm in the hall.

On Monday 15th October, the ACWSC held a public meeting at which Chair Jeremy Spurway presented a recap of the process to date, and then discussed in detail the outcome of the Options Appraisal report, explaining the methodology, results and reccomendations. He then outlined the groups reccommendation that we purchase Inchlumpie Wood. Various questions were raised by the audience, and discussion principally delt with the proposed format of a ballott to be conducted to assess support within the community for the next stage. The ACWSC had proposed that the ballott give two options:

Vote No to community woodland
Vote Yes for progressing with Inchlumpie Wood

The feeling from the audience was that more options should be given, so that the community can feel that they are making their own choice. Although the group explaining the reasoning behind our simplifying the choices, the opinion from the floor was strong, and as such we accepted this message from the community, relieved to been able to gather and incorporate this valuable feedback. To view the presentation please click here (Please note that the final page of the presentation has been modified to present the change in ballott format as agreed at the meeting.)

A public Meeting will be held at 8pm on Monday 15th October 2007 at Ardross Hall. This will allow the Ardross Community Woodland Sub-Committee the opportunity to present the Options Appraisal Report, its findings and recommendations to the community. It will also be a chance to recap on the process so far, and to give an outline of the future. A presentation will be given by the Chair of the group, Jeremy Spurway, following which, questions will be invited from the floor. We hope that you will be able to attend the meeting and have an imput in the process.

A package is currently being prepared to send out to every household in the community. This will contain a copy of the main report prepared by the consultants and a flyer summarising the process so far, where we go from here, and inviting the community to a public meeting on 15th October. The remainder of the report including the appendices and additional maps can be downloaded from the Options Appraisal page on this site, or by contacting the group (see the Contact Us page). If anyone has any suggestions/ comments arising from the report, or in general, please let us know. If these comments are passed on before the public meeting, we can try to integrate them in our recommendations

We attended the Ardross Gathering, where we had a display presenting the Options Appraisal Report, and took the opportunity to inform interested members of the community about what we've been up to, and to gather feedback on progress so far and on the findings of the report.

We were encouraged by the response we gained, and were pleased to be part of a successfull gathering.

The final version of the report has now been received and is available via the website, click here for more info. We will be present at the Ardross Summer Gathering to chat to interested members of the community, and to make copies of the report available. We are aware that not everyone has acccess to the internet, and welcome requests for copies of the report to be mailed out. Please spead the message about this!
Copies of the final report will also be available at the hall.

Peter Allen, Chris Bridges, Martin Brown, Tom Tolman have decided to resign as members of the ACWSC, being unhappy with the outcome of the report.
The remaining members, being satisfied with the report, and positive about the progress of the group, look forward to presenting the report to the community and receiving their feedback.

Karen Chambers from Margin visited the group to discuss the draft report, and to answer queries arising from the group. The outcome was a number of slight alterations to the report, largely including adding additional information to make the details of the report as accessible as possible to the community.

Karen Chambers visited the ACWSC meeting to meet the group and to discuss the Options Appraisal in further detail.

Three tenders were received - Margin, Pannwitz and Piper. From these three, ACWSC chose margin as our preferred option. We have invited them to undertake the Options Appraisal for us. The finished report is to be supplied to the group by the middle of June.

The group has successfully completed the Options Appraisal Brief. This will be forwarded to those consultants who have responded to the invitation to tender. More info on the options appraisal, including a downloadable copy of the brief can be viewed here.