2017

• With the support of the grant from the Scottish Government’s Strengthening Communities Programme. The original idea was a proposed partnership with Forres Area Community Trust regarding property purchases on Forres High Street. However, this proved impractical when the properties we were interested in became unavailable. Nonetheless, the funding that enabled this exploration has been extended for a further year and we have re-focussed on a new-build project in Findhorn.
• We acquired a 0.08ha plot of land in The Park Ecovillage, next to our current Trees for Life Building, with a view to developing the needed office spaces.
• We were awarded £369,262.61 to build the Social Enterprise Hub in Findhorn, as a grant from the Moray LEADER Programme, part-financed by the Scottish Government and the European Community LEADER 2014-2020 Programme. The LEADER grant contribution represents 70% of total project costs, leaving the remaining £158,255 to be invested from Ecovillage shares.
• Park Ecovillage Trust successfully secured a grant from the Scottish Government’s Rural Housing Fund, receiving a total grant of £130,000 in 2017. This enabled the construction of six new affordable flats at West Whins. Ekopia invested a further £130,000 in the project.
• The Phoenix board reported a successful 2017-18 trading year, with healthy increases in turnover and contributions to initiatives that support the flourishing of the community. With profit for the year before dividend and tax of £51.8k, on a turnover of just under £1.3m, a full dividend was declared.
• Findhorn Wind Park Ltd had major expensive maintenance and repair issues. As a result, loan repayments to Ekopia were postponed.
• Ekopia provided a loan to New Findhorn Directions Ltd. which was used to purchase new all-electric holiday caravans and to revamp the surrounding landscape.
• We launched the fifth issue of the Eko (still the UK’s longest-running local currency).