Scotland: National Rural Network
Connecting Rural Scotland - Promoting Rural Growth

CADISPA (Conservation and Development in Sparsely Populated Areas) is an organisation well known throughout Scotland and is actively involved with over 50 rural communities.
 
For the past 20 years the CADISPA project, which is part of the Scottish Centre for Sustainable Community Development, based in Strathclyde University, has enabled ordinary people in rural communities to identify and prioritise their own local agenda and to tackle projects with confidence and skill. The organisation is unique in its approach in that it works in partnership with communities, helping them to work through the implications of any development in terms of its sustainability, without imposing its own ideas or standards.
 
The range of groups which are part of the CADISPA network is wide and covers such diverse projects as Village Halls, Heritage Centres, social and healthcare facilities and youth cafés. In addition CADISPA is used as a model of good practice throughout Europe and beyond, through trans-university partnerships.
 
In return for helping communities to locate their projects within a sustainable framework, the groups allow CADISPA to record, gather information, publish and disseminate the narrative of their progress. This information is then used in policy development in local and central government as well as informing University teaching.
 
Strathclyde University has now decided that as from August 1st this year, CADISPA will be closed down. Should this happen, 20 years of valuable research would be lost and current and future CADISPA groups would lose an invaluable resource which, amongst many other attributes, ensures that the ‘wheel is not re-invented’ every time a community embarks on a new project.
 
Urgent moves are currently afoot both to re-house the organisation in another institution and, most importantly, to secure the future of the Director and Administrator throughout such a move, as without their knowledge and experience CADISPA would be unable to function.
 
The CADISPA Board, community groups, individuals and politicians have all approached the University in an effort to secure a meeting to discuss the situation, but time is running out and unless a solution can be arrived at very soon an incredibly valuable resource plus 20 years of data will be lost.
 
Anyone wanting further details or any community group which would like to join the CADISPA network should contact janvbrown@btinternet.com . Further details of the work of CADISPA and its partner communities can be found at www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/CADISPA