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Three communities in Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æ could still have their own community council, with the decision today to hold a third round of by-elections. Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æ and Bute Council held elections on 26 April 2018. This established 44 community councils out of a total of 56 across the area. Further by-elections were run on 26 June 2018 to encourage more nominations. Another nine community councils were successfully set up. The future of the three remaining – Ardentinny, Lismore and Sandbank – was considered at today’s meeting of Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æ and Bute Council.

Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æ and Bute Council today agreed a grant of up to £100,000 to deliver a home for the area’s only affiliated boxing club and a new venue for community groups. Dunoon’s long-standing Amateur Boxing Club had secured financial backing from various investors including sportscotland. The council’s grant means that work can now progress to build a training venue for the club in the grounds of Dunoon Stadium. The facility will also be available for wider community use.

Work will begin on more than £8million worth of roads improvements across Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æ and Bute in the coming weeks. A Capital Roads Reconstruction Budget of £8,382,000 was agreed by Council earlier this year, in addition to the day-to-day maintenance work like patching and filling potholes. The work is now due to get underway and residents can expect to see reconstruction of certain streets getting started over the summer.

  Sandbank Primary School’s new early level Gaelic class is proving a popular choice, with all 24 of its registered spaces already taken.   The purpose Early Learning and Childcare facility, or Sgoil-Àraich as it is called in Gaelic, has been funded by the Scottish Government and will open its doors for the first time this August.

Pupils from Rothesay Academy travelled to Ayrshire last week to take part in an innovative art project aimed at addressing a skills gap in the textile industry. Initiated by HRH The Duke of Rothesay, the Future Textiles at Dumfries House project aims to give young people an insight into the textile industry and provide them with the skills required to work in the field.

Members of the public are invited to attend one of four focus groups set up to gather feedback on the Supporting Communities Fund voting pilot project that took place in April 2018. Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æ and Bute Council has commissioned independent research company Social Value Lab to evaluate the process, with all responses being anonymously included in a final report. If you voted in the Supporting Communities Fund Participatory Budgeting pilot project, your experiences will be valuable in assessing what was good about the process and what could be improved in the future.

A teacher from Dunoon Grammar School was awarded the title of Apps for Good’s ‘UK Educator of the Year’ at a prestigious awards ceremony in London last week. Paul Gallanagh, Principal Teacher of Business and Computing, was at the Apps for Good final with pupils from the school when he received the accolade. Two teams of youngsters from Dunoon Grammar made it to the final after creating two unique mobile apps, 'safe sockets' and 'nightlight', and beating off stiff competition from 25,000 others.

A bronze sculpture of a classic Gareloch One Design yacht will soon take pride of place at Helensburgh’s Outdoor Museum after councillors approved funding for the artwork. Helensburgh and Lomond Area Committee approved the £600 funding application from the Gareloch One Design Class Association at a meeting on June 21.

Pupils from Dunoon Grammar School attended an International Reception at the Scottish Parliament on Thursday, June 21, to mark the 30th anniversary of an exchange programme with a German school. The reception was sponsored by Maree Todd, Minister of Childcare and Early Years, and was arranged to honour the long-running exchange with the Hardenberg Gymnasium school in the Bavarian city of Fürth.

A group of eight S3 girls from Rothesay Academy showed they’ve for what it take to be fire fighters when they took part in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s Fire Reach Training Scheme.   Funded by Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æ and Bute Council’s Youth Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æ, the scheme provides training and development opportunities to young people through fire related activities.