Montrose Playhouse among regeneration awards nominees

The project has been named in the final three in the community-led regeneration category of this year’s SURF Awards, which showcases success in responding to regeneration challenges in communities across Scotland.

The awards are delivered each year by SURF, a regeneration forum with over 300 cross-sector member organisations across Scotland, in partnership with the Scottish Government.

Having assessed applications from Shetland to Dumfries and Galloway, across five categories, SURF’s independent panel of judges have agreed upon 15 shortlisted projects.

They will visit all of them during October to gain a better understanding of their impact and the situations to which they are responding.

Since 1998, the SURF Awards have identified successful regeneration projects of all sizes from across Scotland. This year’s shortlisted projects feature major place-making investments, youth employability initiatives, and activities delivered by community groups and arts organisations in both urban and rural contexts.

The five category winners will then be announced by Tom Arthur, Scottish Government Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, on December 8 at the awards’ presentation dinner in Glasgow’s Grand Central Hotel.

Brian MacDonald, SURF chairman, said: “SURF delivers a number of programmes, but the SURF Awards are the jewel in our crown.

"We’re confident that the nominees can prove that they’ve been able to use the power of their communities, their innovation and their commitment not just to win, but to highlight the significant number of activities that truly connect with people, so that they can deliver developments that are informed and are therefore most relevant to them.

"This year we again face challenges which will impact on the work being done at a grassroots level. It’s probably more important that we highlight the significant work happening in communities in these most challenging of circumstances.”