Hands Across the Firth

The Moray Firth Partnership’s “Hands Across the Firth” project aims to make the coast’s rich cultural and natural heritage more accessible to local people and visitors, and to provide opportunities to link up and promote local projects on a firth-wide basis as part of a wider national and international campaign. The Moray Firth Partnership is currently completing studies looking at some of the main issues preventing access to heritage and aims to work with local groups to address these as part of the project.

Community Consultations
Community and heritage groups from the coastal area between John O’ Groats and Fraserburgh area were invited to attend a series of special meetings to hear about exciting new heritage project opportunities. The meetings were an opportunity for groups and organisations interested in local heritage and community projects to help shape the project by looking at ways in which they might become involved. There are opportunities for a range of different projects under the “Hands Across the Firth” banner, ranging from new interpretation and promotion to special events and outreach/educational activities. A series of short meetings took place across the area as follows:

Invergordon: Monday 3rd April
Brora: Tuesday 4th April
Lybster: Wednesday 5th April
Inverness: Thursday 6th April
Findhorn: Monday 10th April
Fraserburgh: Wednesday 12th April 

To view photos and list of attendees please click here (pdf 193kb) 

The Next Steps
The consultation workshops generated very encouraging responses from a wide range of heritage groups interested in taking part in the main project. We reviewed the information from these community meetings and put together a proposal of the kinds of projects / geographical areas / links between projects that would help make up a really innovative "Hands Across the Firth" project.

As part of the Planning Phase, we also prepared an “audience development plan”, which highlights many of the issues raised by you regarding problems in accessing local heritage. The main “Hands Across the Firth” project will then attempt to address a range of these issues, as an integral part of the various local projects. 

The final step was to pull all of this together and an application to Heritage Lottery Funding to deliver this exciting project was submitted in June 2006.

For further information on the “Hands Across the Firth” project, please contact Helen Smith or Hazel Bews at Rowan Tree Consulting, tel 01463 715225, e-mail HAF@morayfirth-partnership.org

For further information on the Moray Firth Partnership, please contact Kathryn Logan, tel 01463 225530,email info@morayfirth-partnership.org

The 'Hands Across the Firth' project planning phase has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.