COWDENBEATH Town House played host to eight visitors from Jutland, in Denmark, who were delighted to see the success of several projects in the area.

The Danes were in Fife as part of a three day visit to Scotland to learn about Participatory Budgeting. Cowdenbeath was their first destination and the visitors, led by Morten Ronnenberg and accompanied by Jez Hall of the Participatory Budgeting Network, met with representatives from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and from both Cardenden and Benarty Community Futures Steering Groups.

The guests were welcomed by Councillor Willie Clarke and were given presentations by Pauline Grandison, from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, David Taylor and Vi Penman, of the Cardenden Futures organisation; and Michael O’ Hare of Benarty Futures group. Contributions were also made by Lochs councillor Alex Campbell and Fife Council officers. The Danes heard about the planning, survey work, discussion, public consultation and voting events which had gone into delivering five-year Community Action Plans for both Cardenden and Benarty and about how the £30,000 of funding provided for each Area had been allocated. They also heard about plans to run similar exercises in Lochgelly and Crossgates. In turn the local people in attendance learned about four projects which the people of Jutland had been taking part in. Like the exercises in Fife, the aim of the initiatives was to get local people more involved in deciding on local priorities and on how public money is allocated to best benefit local people.

Both hosts and visitors learned a lot from the exchange and there is hope that the experience will lead to further exchanges of information and experiences….and perhaps a return visit to Denmark in the future