The Isles of Scilly AONB is inviting anyone with a project idea to come and talk to them about funding.

AONB Manager, Trevor Kirk, says the organisation has been provided with £40,000 by Defra this year to fund projects that either seek to conserve and enhance the environment or contribute to sustainable social and economic development on the Islands.

Trevor says the Sustainable Development Fund has been used in previous years to support a wide range of projects, from recreational facilities, such as the bowling green at St Mary’s golf club and the St Agnes MUGA, through to more commercially focused projects, such as the crane on St Mary’s quay.

And some projects have had a more traditional environmental approach, such as funding equipment for the local bat group.

Trevor says the SDF is a relatively small pot of money each year and historically they haven’t awarded grants over £6,000. He said this means they can share the money around more projects each year.

However, SDF money can be combined with funds from other sources, particularly the Local Action Group.

Charitable organisations and community groups are eligible for up to 75% of their project costs while businesses and the local authority can get up to 50%.

The AONB will be running an open day next Thursday, 24^th May, to provide information and advice on how to obtain SDF funding. Staff will be available at the Wesleyan Chapel on St Mary’s from 2.00pm to 6.45pm and Trevor says anyone who can’t attend is free to pop into the AONB offices or check out details on their website at www.ios-aonb.info.

Samson Hill Cottage Guesthouse on Bryher

A Bryher guesthouse, which has been open less then a year, has gained a prestigious environmental award.

Samson Hill Cottage, owned by Issy and Gareth Tibbs, has received a Green Tourism Business Gold award, one of only two guesthouses in Scilly with that distinction.

Issy says she’s excited to have gained the top level. As this is their first year in business she had been hoping for a Silver award.

The Green Tourism Business Scheme has been running since 1997, covering the whole of the UK and Ireland, and aims to highlight those tourism businesses with strong environment credentials.

Issy said Samson Hill Cottage had to go through a full inspection and at relatively short notice. Most businesses usually get 8 weeks to prepare, but her inspector gave just 2 weeks notice.

They were marked on areas such as their use of resources, waste management and how they enhance the natural environment.

Issy says they were keen to a have strong environmental aspect to their business and, being a new build, they were able to work with the Duchy at an early stage to ensure good quality insulation was fitted, as well as water-saving showers and taps.

She says every decision they made was in an environmentally-friendly way rather than the more usual approach on Scilly which is about how easy it is to get something from the mainland.

The couple received praise for their innovative use of recycled materials. Their dining tables are made from reclaimed planks and the beds are constructed from wooden packing pallets.

They also received lots of good advice from the Wildlife Trust about planting their large garden with native trees. They also grow a lot of their own fruit.

Issy says joining the award scheme and sticking to their focus on the environment is also paying dividends. She says at least five booking so far this year have come specifically through the Green Tourism Business Scheme and she says the guests have been very enthusiastic about their approach.

But she says, at the end of the day, when you’re surrounded by such beauty on Scilly, you tend to see the environment in a different way.

The Olympic Torch begins its 70-day round-Britain relay today, starting from Land’s End.

But even though a campaign by Island Tourism to get our islands included in the procession failed, pupils from the Five Islands School have managed to create their own “starting leg” for the torch, here on Scilly.

Yesterday morning, six children from the Judo and Football clubs ran the short but steep journey from the school to the airport to deliver their own, hand-made version of the flame. The torch was then sent to Land’s End aboard a Skybus plane.

Lewis Johnson, who carried the torch, described the run as ‘easy’ but thought he might have gone off a bit too fast. He was joined by Tara and Zoe Hitchens, Tom Glenn, Jack Vaughn, Cameron Hicks and mum, Ce Hicks.

Helen Glenn who organised the run said it’s a great tribute to Lesley Thomas and Duncan Graham who are the two representatives from our islands taking part in the official relay this weekend. Duncan is the chair of the football club.

She said the flame was “transported in style” to the airport by the children and says, tongue-in-cheek, that she hopes they scrap “the fancy torch” and run with the kid’s version.

Helen said everyone has been helpful organising the event, including the police, the School and the Steamship Company.

Duchy Land Steward, Chris Gregory, is Chairing the new tourism partnership

Scilly’s new Tourism Partnership hopes to have a tourism manager in place by the end of summer.

The body, which amalgamates Island Tourism, Island Marketing and the Council Tourist Board, was recommended by consultants Blue Sail as a means of simplifying and strengthening our tourism offer and promotion of Scilly.

An interim board has set up a company and there’ll be a constitution agreed in the next few weeks.

Island Marketing, which is made up of the Duchy, Tresco Estate, the Council, together with Island Tourism and travel operators, have handed over their marketing cash.

The partnership will continue to use Mercury PR to encourage press articles about Scilly and the new group will be in charge of producing the brochure from this summer.

Chris Gregory, who is chairing the group, says it will be “business as usual” with the brochure, but says they can’t change everything straight away.

In particular, the TIC will continue to be operated by the Council but in partnership with the new body.

How much emphasis will be placed on the printed guide or emerging web and device-enabled promotional tools will be assessed in the future.

A Local Action Group funding request will soon be submitted so they can recruit and fund a manager to develop operations.

He or she will be based in Scilly and the Duchy will make accommodation available. They’ll be paid around the same amount as a middle-ranking Council employee.

Chris says they’ve done their homework on pay levels and the package will be attractive in the current economy, but the appointment won’t necessarily come from the pubic sector. He says they’ll be looking for someone entrepreneurial since the position holder will have to develop income streams for the future to sustain their funding.

Recruitment ads will be placed soon in national publications and the hope is to have someone in position by the end of summer.

The partnership’s main goal will be to stop any further fall in visitor numbers through more targeted marketing. Chris is concerned that Blue Sail’s surveys found that some potential visitors felt Scilly had ‘nothing’ to offer them.

Travel costs are dissuading some visitors and while the new group won’t lobby travel operators as such, if prices are repelling tourists they will express that view to them.

They will also question the no-Sunday-travel policy, especially when the Islands may want to remove any barriers to travel.

Travel costs and no-sunday travel could be putting visitors off

Chris says some travellers find it quaint, but some also find it “extraordinary” that they can’t get here on a Sunday.

He says if that’s repelling a large proportion of people coming here, the industry “has to ask itself if that is a cost it’s willing to bear.” And he says the answer to that might be different in the current financial climate than it was 10 years ago.

The Blue Sail advice was that middle-class, higher earners aren’t dissuaded by travel cost and that means the marketing effort will be concentrated on attracting well-healed Southerners.

There’ll be moves to “up the game” with service quality and value for money but Chris says they won’t act as police or quality regulators. This will only work if people buy into the partnership’s vision, he says.

The board hopes there will be a sizeable take-up of membership and those joining will access a range of services, such as training and sharing of knowledge that will assist their business.

Chris says they haven’t set the rate for membership yet but they have discussed the matter.

The partnership want to make it as affordable as possible but at the same time, they need the money to be able to deliver. “There’s no point in pretending you can do this for nothing,” he added.

There are plans for the Council’s tourism website to show which accommodation providers in Scilly have vacancies, from the middle of next month.

It’s the first time Simplyscilly.co.uk has revealed where there are spaces and the businesses will appear using a random selection process so it is fair.

But the development isn’t going as far as offering online booking. Plans to add that function to the official Tourist Board site proved controversial four years ago and they were dropped.

Businesses will be able to log in and update their own availability themselves and Council TIC staff will receive training on the new system next week.

Julian Pearce of the Council’s Economic Development team says the site needs a refresh, as there’s been little site maintenance since the current version went live in 2008. The upgraded version will be easier to search and will offer tabs allowing users to click on each accommodation listing for more information.

The redesign is part of web company, New Mind’s £12,000 website contract with the Council.

Web enquiries are down 10% year-on-year says Julian but the number of brochure downloads have remained constant.

Former school site at Carn Thomas

Police say a large quantity of tools have gone missing from the old school site at Carn Thomas.

Sergeant Colin Taylor told us the items missing include an electric cement mixer, numerous trowels and lump hammers, chisels and grouting equipment.

He said it’s not the type of thing that could be hidden in a rucksack, and said it “would need a flatbed lorry” to carry away in one go. The value is estimated to run into thousands of pounds.

The tools were stored in a single room at the back of the school and teacher, Martin Songhurst, discovered the disappearance when he went to transfer them to the new site at Carn Gwaval.

Colin says it’s unclear when they went missing or over what period of time, since the school has been empty since last September.

He says he’s keen to locate the items. If someone has simply borrowed them, they should let him know and they can sort the matter out easily.

Otherwise, he will be treating it as theft.

This is the second crime reported at Carn Thomas. Last October, Police investigated an incident of criminal damage on the site following an illegal entry.

Islanders are generally happy with the medical services they receive in Scilly, but there is dissatisfaction over adult mental health services, availability of optician’s appointments and a lack of x-ray facilities.

That’s according to the latest Community Survey by the health watchdog, Link4Scilly.

Link says this survey had a smaller number of respondents than previously, although they still received 444 comments over 25 different services.

And top of the list for criticism was the optometry service, receiving 17 negative responses out of a total of 23.

Most respondents described the optician service on Scilly as “in need of improvement,” citing the difficulty of getting an appointment here and making it necessary to travel to the mainland.

One person said the service was “fabulous when you are able to get an appointment, but it’s not available on Scilly often enough.”

LINk says the health service is in the process of moving from an informal agreement with a company providing opticians services to are more formal service contract, which should hopefully resolve many of these problems.

And in the area of adult mental health, the majority of respondents were critical of the level and quality of the service provided here. They pointed to the need for relationship counselling and help with alcohol addiction.

LINk said there was a clear need for a local support worker for mental health and criticised the ‘place of safety’ arrangements for people with acute psychiatric disorders. They say the role of acute psychiatric nurse on the islands is currently unfilled due to ill health and they said they were disappointed that Cornwall Foundation Trust had not discussed the issues with them, although Carol Clarke says they’ve since had a very positive meeting with their medical director.

The lack of x-ray facilities when the old equipment was condemned last year raised some complaints too.

The PCT has recently announced the installation of a state-of-the-art digital x-ray system at St Mary’s hospital, which should be up and running by June. But LINk says it is “regrettable that the upgrade was not instigated sooner, in order to minimise disruption to the local service.”

Elsewhere, the services provided by St Mary’s Hospital were viewed as very good, although some felt the excellent facilities could be used more often rather than sending patients to the mainland.

Islanders felt he GP service at the health centre was generally good although some felt it could be improved. People were happy with the appointment of a female locum but said it was often difficult to get an appointment, a situation that LINk say should be improved with the recent appointment of two part-time female GPs at the surgery.

You can see a full copy of the survey here.

Julie Girling, one of Scilly's MEPs

One of our Islands’ MEPs has welcomed new research into the mysterious collapse of honeybee numbers across Europe.

And Julie Girling says the rest of the UK and Europe could benefit from ‘clean’ bee stocks, like those in Scilly, by importing queens. She added that she will be investigating with the commission the possibility of support, both financial and technical, to help beekeepers respond.

In March this year, the Isles of Scilly AONB launched a campaign to highlight the plight of bees and to provide information on keeping our own colonies healthy, such as cleaning out used honey jars.

The distance from the mainland means the islands are one of the few places in Europe that are free of the varroa mite, which has devastated many mainland hives.

The lack of industrialised agriculture also means that insecticides, which are another factor in mainland bees’ decline, haven’t built up in the population.

Julie Girling said yesterday that, “The Isles of Scilly have a unique position in England as the only place not affected by the deadly varroa mite and I urge residents and visitors to be vigilant and play their part in maintaining bio security.”

She spoke on the day the European Commission announced it had earmarked almost €3.2 million to support surveillance studies on honeybee colony losses.

Two years ago Julie launched a ‘Save the Bee’ campaign and last year took a report through the European Parliament regarding their plight.

She said funding announced by the European Commission would allow detailed study of honeybee mortality and could start to provide explanations for colony losses.

The UK is losing its bee population at around 30% a year, up from just 6% in 2003, says Julie.

But the islands’ AONB are keen to show how our disease-free bees can become an asset. Clare Lewis from the organisation says there is a shortage of so-called ‘clean queens’ on the mainland and Scilly is in a prime position to export these.

She says bee ‘livestock’ are actually more valuable than honey these days and could become a lucrative industry for the islands.

St Agnes viewed from Gugh

Scilly has come second in a list of the top 10 island groups on the planet.

National Geographic included our islands in their newly-published guide, ‘The 10 Best of Everything.’

Their glossy coffee table travel book placed Scilly behind the New England island of Nantucket and ahead of Saba in the Dutch West Indies and Tahiti in French Polynesia.

The book plays on our Royal connections, claiming that they are owned by Prince Charles.

They say we have a moderate to balmy temperature and we are a favourite among Europeans as the relaxed island culture and beautiful open spaces lend themselves to an excellent vacation atmosphere.

The write up says we’re a great place for bird watching, boating and water sports.

Measures to combat alcohol-abuse have been identified as a key public health priority for our islands.

Members at yesterday’s Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board, which will soon take over the management of health and social services on the Isles of Scilly, heard that 90 people were admitted to St Mary’s hospital in 2009/10 due to alcohol-related illnesses including acute intoxication, liver disease and injuries from falling.

The report from the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Drug and Alcohol Action Team said that, while those numbers were too small for meaningful analysis, they were in-line with other statistics in the region and nationally that show a significant rise in alcohol-related admissions over the past ten years.

Bob Crossland, manager of the service, which is based in Cornwall, said for the past couple of years, the islands have been “disconnected” from his team’s alcohol abuse services.

Bob said a worker visits on a fortnightly basis to help local frontline staff dealing with alcohol abuse, such as the GP surgery.

But he added that the new Health and Wellbeing Board will need to take responsibility for managing these services in the future.

Jez Baynes, one of the authors of the report, says the range of alcohol services on Scilly are less well developed than on the mainland and it‘s a good time to review the services.

Unlike mainland community hospitals, our hospital cannot deliver detox programmes because they don’t have the correct certification. Patients currently have to travel to Helston or St Ives to get that service.

Jez also described the “Home and Dry” home detox kits, but again, these cannot be delivered by our Health Centre because the staff haven’t been trained.

He recommended employing a part-time alcohol abuse worker for the islands to coordinate local activities, rather than relying on support from the mainland.

That will cost an estimated £17,000, but Councillors said they couldn’t agree to this until they knew what the final health and wellbeing budget was going to be. Final settlements are not expected until the autumn.

Cllr David Pearson felt this investment could save money spent on treatment in the long-term. But Cllr Amanda Martin was more sceptical, saying it wasn’t clear from the report what benefits there would be for tax payers.

The report also recommended engaging with local licensees to encourage best practice in the industry and introducing Cornwall’s “Best Bar None” award scheme. Councillors felt that should be taken up with the local Pubwatch group.

Cllr Marian Bennett asked for the proposals to be investigated and brought back to a future meeting and that was supported by other members.

The Town Hall

The Council is to introduce a scheme to support out-of-workpeople in Scilly.

Joel Williams, Children’s Centre and Extended Services Manager, said this was needed because, while various parts of the Council already provide information on training, employment and financial hardship, that was not “fully integrated” and some departments may not be aware of what others were able to offer.

His department had an interest in this area, he said, because there was a link between unemployment and child poverty.

The programme, called Scilly Works, will be based on a similar scheme in Cornwall.

Joel said the idea is to create more “collaborative working arrangements” with local and mainland partners, such as Job Centre Plus and Citizens’ Advice.

However, Joel admitted that, “unemployment isn’t a massive issue on the islands at the moment, in fact there is under-employment.”

Joel said they intend to apply for £10,000 to fund the initial work.

Data from the Office for National Statistics in April this year show that Scilly had a total of 13 unemployment benefit claimants, representing 1.1% of the working population.

This compares with 4.8% nationally.