Health and wellbeing

Connecting people and nature.

Led by NatureScot, the programme aims to give people the opportunity to help tackle the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss by creating and caring for their own forest in their own neighbourhood.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced the breakdown of a lifeline £100 million financial package to support businesses experiencing cancellations due to the rapid spread of the new Omicron variant.

The £100 million support package is broken down into:

Communities play a crucial role in encouraging others to walk and cycle by making places more enjoyable to travel through or to. By encouraging more people to walk and cycle, traffic congestion is reduced, public health improves and carbon emissions and air pollution is lowered.

Sustrans is a charity that aims to make it easier for people to walk and cycle and as part of that mission they are delivering the ArtRoots NCN fund, a community fund for artistic and aesthetic improvements to traffic-free paths along the National Cycle Network in Scotland. 

New measures announced for a just transition to Net Zero.

Investment of £12.3 million has been awarded so far this year by Scottish Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise as part of the £100 million Green Jobs Fund and is expected to create and safeguard over 850 green jobs.

Spearheaded by the Mull and Iona Community Trust, ambitious plans are underway to transform Ardura's dark conifer plantations into a vibrant community woodland, that will benefit nature, climate and local communities.

The public consultation, which attracted a total of 1,739 responses, asked for views on the Scottish Government’s Fireworks and Pyrotechnics Bill.

The proposed Bill follows the report of an independent Fireworks Review Group which recommended tightening legislation to reduce the harm fireworks can cause.

A series of three light-hearted books have raised over £100,000 for RSABI, the charity supporting people in Scottish agriculture.

The books, which are the perfect Christmas stocking fillers, were compiled by farming journalist Andrew Arbuckle with his late brother John also working on the first two titles.

Scottish Futures Trust has published their new ‘Place Guide’

Living well locally is a key ambition of the Programme for Government.  Building the conditions to live well locally is about taking a place-based approach to needs, services and investment opportunities.

As creative groups start to meet up in person again, Creative Lives is offering 18 micro-grants of £300 each to help make that happen.

Eligible groups/projects are ones that:

An additional £18 million will be available this year to help householders install energy efficient measures and reduce their heating bills, bringing the total support available through Home Energy Scotland to £50 million in 2021-2022.