BLOG: SSE Renewables helps fund new Multi Use Games Area for Perthshire communities

Last Wednesday, I got to take some time away from the office to do something that means a lot to me, not only in my role as Director of Asset Management for Onshore Wind but on a personal level too.

I was very pleased to be invited to the opening of the Dunkeld and Birnam Multi-use Games Area (commonly known as a MUGA) on the outskirts of the two villages, in one of the most picturesque parts of Perthshire.

I was asked to represent SSE Renewables at the event so we could see for firsthand how our wind farms are changing lives in other ways besides producing clean, safe, secure energy.

This amazing covered space; this MUGA, is where local people are already coming together in all weathers to play football, tennis, basketball and a range of other sports and recreational activities. A fantastic facility that’s benefiting this small rural community, made possible by a £200,000 investment from the Griffin and Calliachar Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund.

I can firmly say that I love workdays like these. Days when I can meet not only the people in the communities of which we are part of, but also representatives from our community fund panel who make the decisions on how the money is spent – local people who know what their communities need to make them better places to live in. Not to forget our fantastic Community Investment team who help make it all happen.

I think it is vitally important that SSE Renewables helps the rural communities, where our wind farms are located, through our funds. I’m a bit biased when it comes to Griffin and Calliachar Wind Farms and their fund because I have worked on or with these sites through my career in SSE from development stage up to now, where we can see all the benefit they bring through contributing to national green energy needs and benefiting our local communities alike.

More generally though, as Morven says (as you’ll hear in this short film), the money from our funds helps communities support themselves; communities which sometimes are very rural, and fragile in terms of resources, such as sports facilities, things that many of us who live in urban areas take for granted.

The money from our renewables projects which go to these communities helps them to build capacity and it empowers them so that they can take the initiative to invest in their own futures. After all, it was only after the MUGA project received our donation that the other sponsors saw that it was a serious and viable project and came on board with the remainder of the funds.

And on personal level? Ah well, there’s every chance that I’ll be using the MUGA myself…I live just down the road so if you take a visit yourself, there’s every chance that you can come and have a kick about with me and my kids! Meet you at the MUGA!