The Annual SURF regeneration awards this year showed an emphatic swing towards recognising the achievements of peripheral communities. In the three established categories of ‘People’, ‘Place’ and ‘Partnership’, judged by separate panels, five out of six winning or ‘highly commended’ projects came from the Scottish islands, often from some of their remoter corners. Community Energy Scotland notes that three of them receive its support.

However suggestions that this is the result of some ingrained weakness in governance in urban Scotland need to take account of the fact that in 2009 six out of six of the equivalent awards went to organisations in urban central Scotland.