AGM 2025

bevfortrose
May 4
5 min read

Raddery House AGM held on 23rd April 2025

A very successful event attended by members non members and councillors.

Below you can read our Chairs Report given at the meeting, a copy is available for download at the bottom of the page.

Raddery House Ltd. Chair’s Report AGM 2025

Good evening, Everyone.

My name is Bev Smith, and I am Chair of Raddery House Ltd.

Those of you who know me will know that public speaking is something I don`t like and would usually try to avoid. However, in this instance it’s a pleasure to make my Chair’s report and update you all on the activities of the Board.

It’s a pleasure because over the last year we have achieved huge success and significantly moved our proposed project forward. So much so that I am now very confident that we have changed the project from being something that only existed as some ideas on paper to one that will very soon become a physical reality ,offering real opportunities to the whole Black Isle community.

Updating you on the crucial steps that have changed the project in this way takes me back to a little before our last AGM , to January of last year. At that time, we were facing a deadline from Highland Council to submit our application for Community Asset Transfer which we knew we had no chance of meeting.

We needed an extension to allow us more time and the Board successfully negotiated that extension, and a new deadline of July was set. Negotiating an extension for an application deadline may not seem a great success but in our case failure to do so would have led to the project falling at the first hurdle.

Over the next six months the Board worked very hard with our main consultant to produce a Business Case that was both credible and reflected the wishes of the community. That Business case was presented at our open day in June which many of you may have attended. This Business Case formed the basis of our application to Highland Council for a Community Asset Transfer which was submitted in time to comply with the extended time scale we had negotiated.

Following further work by the Board we heard in late January that the Asset Transfer application was unanimously approved by Highland Council and that a formal offer for Raddery House Ltd to procure the site was approved.

Not only did the Council approve the transfer of the asset they also agreed that the price we would have to pay would be 30% below its market valuation. This considerably reduces the price we must pay but equally important is that this “discount” will be considered by other funders as a significant contribution to any funding requests that Raddery House Ltd makes itself

We now have a year from January to complete the purchase and that process is also well advanced.

The Scottish Land Fund is the body set up by government to support purchases of this sort. They consider applications several times a year and the application round that most suits our requirements demanded that an application was submitted by the end of March.

Once again following significant work by the Board and our advisers that deadline has been met, and our application is currently being considered. It would be wrong of me to pre-empt the SLF decision which will be made in June but I am confident that we have considerable support from SLF officers, our project is seen as exciting, and our application is convincing. That being the case I am at least cautiously optimistic that the application will be approved.

Gaining the funds to purchase the site is only the very start of the process. Finding the money to develop it is just as important. In this regard we have also made significant progress. The Board was successful in attracting support from Highlands and Islands Enterprise in the form of a consultancy paid for by them which provided our project with the services of a specialist fundraiser of national reputation and expertise.

They have identified 19 specific funds which could support the development of our project with significant resources. High quality applications have been developed by the consultant’s team and six of these equating to approx. 2 million pounds have been submitted.

We know that the funding environment is difficult and very competitive so it is certain that not all our applications will be supported in full. However, I am confident that some will, and we therefore will have some resource to use for the post purchase phase of our project.

As I said earlier with all the progress over this last year, we are very close to moving from the ideas ,development and planning phase of the project to one of implementation and delivery.

Over the next months the Board will concentrate on three main activities.

Fundraising remains crucial as without substantial funds over several years the project will be difficult to sustain. The applications we have submitted already will require further work to ensure their success and further application must be developed.

As we see what resources we have available, the purchase of the site and its initial development will have to be negotiated and completed. A huge amount of contract, project and site management will be involved in this work which will necessarily demand the Boards time and effort. We hope that one of our grant applications will provide funding for at least one, initially, part time member of staff with the skills and experience to support us in this work.

Lastly, we get to the bit that everything else has been leading to………making the site available to the community and providing the opportunities they want. All of our major funders want to see activities on site as soon as possible and the Board are determined to make this happen. We will therefore work on a programme of attractive activities that can take place throughout the site and the woodlands with the minimum of infrastructure in place.

Although these activities may not require significant infrastructure, they must nevertheless be high quality, attractive and based on community demand. Considerable work still needs to be done by the Board itself and with our partners to be sure what a programme would look like and how it will be delivered.

In short, my report today is simple: following a year of hard but successful work we are tantalisingly close to seeing our project become a reality. We just need to close out the outstanding negotiations and get on site.

Exciting times are ahead but if anything, the work just gets more intense and harder. I am sure that with your continued support the Board is up to the task.