Stevenson & Gray Welcome Heritage Lottery Fund Award of £100,000 For Portsoy Salmon House

SNP Scottish Parliament candidate Stewart Stevenson and council candidate for Banff & District Ian Gray have warmly welcomed the announcement that the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival (SBTF) is to receive a stage one grant of £110,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The grant is for the Portsoy Salmon House restoration project which is intended to develop the unused B-listed building considered to be of national significance to provide a base for the SBTF and to house and exhibition and interpretive centre as well as various other activities.

Mr Stevenson has been campaigning for more lottery funds for the North-east for some time and in 2004 organised a lottery roadshow in his constituency where he invited all lottery funding bodies to host an information stand and send representatives to talk to local orgianisations and individuals. The event was a huge success with queues forming outside before the event started.

Commenting, Stewart Stevenson said:

"This is excellent news for the Boat Festival, for Portsoy, and for the wider Banffshire economy because the Boat Festival has become one of our key annual events and attracts massive numbers of people each year.

"I know from my travels around the constituency that lottery funding is put to very good use indeed and I will continue working hard to support local organisations to ensure that this continues.

"I am always happy to support any organisation in their lottery applications if approached."

SNP council candidate for Banff & District, which includes Portsoy, Ian Gray added:

"I am absolutely delighted for the Festival organisers and I congratulate all those involved with this successful application.

"It's tremendous to have such a large amount of lottery funding coming to Portsoy in support of one of our key local tourist attractions. The Boat Festival provides a huge boost to the local economy each year and this will help it to go from strength to strength."