News reaches us of a blunder from north of the border, where residents of the tiny lochside village of Tarbet in Argyll and Bute were surprised to hear last week that they had been allocated nearly £1 million from the Scottish Government’s new Town Centre Regeneration Fund.At the time of the announcement, James Fisher of Tarbet’s community council, said the cash would make a “massive difference”. But he admitted he did not know that the village – on the shores of Loch Lomond (pictured) – was in the running for the cash.
It later emerged that the Scottish Government’s press release announcing the recipients of the cash should have said that Tarbert – a town on the edge of Loch Fyne – was the successful applicant. (For a map showing the different locations of the two towns, click here). A Scottish Government spokesman admitted: “There was a mistake in the typing of the release.”
The Scottish Government should at least be thankful that it didn’t get as far as actually sending the cash to the wrong place. That’s what happened last February when the Department for Communities and Local Government overpaid Staffordshire market town Newcastle-under-Lyme £2 million of grants after mixing it up with the much larger Newcastle upon Tyne.
DCLG officials confused Tyne with Lyme as they calculated the amounts to be refunded under the Local Authority Business Growth Incentive (Labgi) scheme.
