Cadwyn Clwyd

The Community Innovation Denbighshire project, delivered by a partnership of Cadwyn Clwyd Rural Development Agency and Denbighshire Voluntary Services Council (DVSC), focused on community-led local economic development, enabling geographical and sectoral communities in Denbighshire to realise and foster innovation and an entrepreneurial attitude at the local and micro level. The project priority themes were investment in skills, investment for local businesses, and investment in communities and place.

The Community Innovation Denbighshire project had 3 distinct elements, with 1 element part-funded through the Clocaenog fund: Denbighshire Community Action - Financial and Officer Support for Community Groups.

Cadwyn Clwyd received £40,000 from the Clocaenog Forest Wind Farm fund - 10% of the total project cost of £400,000. The outcomes and delivery of the project more than exceeded expectations.

The aim was to develop and test innovative projects focussed on economic development, Covid recovery, green growth and investment in communities and place. The Feasibility Studies and Pilot Projects were small scale, time limited activities aimed at testing a concept or trying an innovative new technique or approach to see if an idea could be developed into a full-scale realisable project.

There were 16 community projects, made up of:

• 12 feasibility studies/development plans
• 4 pilot projects

The pilot projects included an advisory service for community buildings that would provide them with energy efficiency audits, professional services support to help community capital projects go from feasibility stage to build stage, and a tourism initiative looking to develop new interpretation that includes dendrochronological dating of historic buildings.

The Community Action Projects within the Clocaenog area were:

• Provision of the Professional Fees for Capital Projects
• Sustainable Community Facilities
• Food and Drink Sector Readiness for NP Status
• Llangollen Rural Multiuser Path Loop Study
• Enhance Riverside Park, Llangollen
• Energy Saving Solutions
• Residential facility at the Woodland Skills
• Pentredwr Outdoor Facilities
• Grow Llangollen
• Sustaining Rural Tourism
• Ruthin Dendrochronology
• Nantglyn Village Hall
• Llangollen Food Festival
• Llys Owain Coordinator, Corwen.

The Sustainable Community Facilities project enabled 12 community buildings to get an Energy Efficiency audit carried out, which enables the community facilities to prioritise what projects would save them money on energy costs going forward and to prioritise their plans for a sustainable future. These audits have then enabled the individual groups to apply to the Clocaenog Forest Wind Farm Fund directly for funding towards Energy Efficiency projects, some examples are:

Llandrillo Village Hall – Y Ganolfan – Were successful in their application to Clocaenog to replace their lights with LED ones.

Llanfwrog Community Association – Were Successful in their application to replace the tennis court floodlights with LED light which will also accord with the Dark Skies initiative.