Royal Deeside :
More on Ballater (RD) Ltd

Ballater (RD) Ltd or BRD has grown over seven years into a respected and experienced contributor to the local economy. It created and manages Ballater Walking Festival and has assisted with the Balmoral Road Races and Victoria Week all of which bring visitors and income into the area. The internet project that BRD coordinated for Upper Deeside yielded this popular website. In 2007 BRD launched "History With Boots On”, a Lottery-funded project, to encourage walkers to enjoy the countryside whilst learning a little about our heritage.

As part of our aim to protect the local environment and regulate indiscriminate development a Community Woodland Strategy was presented for public consultation. BRD is an expert community bus operator and many of our senior citizens, as well as other groups in the area, appreciate this excellent facility. BRD also organises MiDAS training for community bus drivers.

In 2007 and 2008 we arranged for a Continental Market to visit Ballater.

BRD has a highly experienced and motivated team of directors each working on a voluntary basis for the well-being of the community. See below for a brief history of BRD.

Background Ballater (RD) Ltd. was hatched out of a study into the development of rural economies commissioned by Scottish Enterprise and Aberdeenshire Council in 1996. A Business Plan was initiated and this culminated in seed-corn money being provided by both public bodies to incorporate the Company. A Public Meeting was called in late 1996, and under supervision by the Council and the Enterprise Company a Board of Directors was appointed. The Company became a Scottish Registered Charity.

Victoria Week in Ballater has proved popular with visitors

The early months were a continuing struggle to identify ways of funding activities that the Business Plan had identified and to persuade volunteers to implement them - apart from the question that of how next week’s wages were to be paid. Of course, Ballater was not alone in that similar studies had been carried out in Aboyne and Braemar and they were in the same process of evolving into community organisations. Indeed this empowering of communities was taking place across the whole of Scotland as part of the Scottish Executive’s policy of placing economic decision-making for economic activity in the hands of local communities.

As time progressed some of these organisations came together to share experience, sometimes to share resources and to work together on common strategies. In our area the Royal Deeside Partnership was created and has carried out a number of successful activities across Upper Deeside. Indeed virtually the whole of rural Aberdeenshire now has a number of these local rural partnerships and has, with Aberdeenshire Council and Scottish Enterprise Grampian support, become the Aberdeenshire Rural Partnership Federation. The Federation has become an important channel of communication and a major influence in formulating Aberdeenshire Council’s policy towards rural economic development. So much so that it is declared in the Council’s Strategy that the solution to any rural economic problems arising locally will be addressed through the community economic development company in that area.

At the end of 2006 the funding coming through the European Union Objective 2 funding ceased and the LEADER funding arrangements were markedly changed. These changes led in term to many other changes in publicly-funded support and for nearly two years the future of BRD was in doubt. During this time we lost the very valuable services of our full-time coordinator. Now, the future of a somewhat leaner BRD seems more secure.

BRD has received private donations and public funding support from, among others, the Scottish Executive, Lloyds TSB, The Heritage Lottery Fund, Scottish Enterprise (Grampian), LEADER +, the European Union and Cairngorm National Park Authority and Aberdeenshire Council.