The largest village in Angus has set up a local lottery fighting fund to tackle its crumbling roads.
Letham residents have come up with the innovative solution for the deteriorating state of unadopted roads.
They say the recently-launched Letham Village Lottery could generate £20,000 a year if just a tenth of locals buy a weekly £2 ticket.
The move comes after Angus residents were warned a quest for more cash to repair unadopted roads was like “trying to find gold at the end of the rainbow”.
The village felt it had reached a crossroads after the council moved to withdraw some refuse collection services from the worst-affected streets.
Lottery chairman Mario Rizza said: “In very simple terms, there are three road categories in Letham – private access, public roads that have been adopted by the roads authority and public roads that have not been adopted.
“Rights, authority and obligations are not well balanced.
Letham’s Village Lottery chairman Mario Rizza.
“Some of the earliest roads are now only grassy foot/bike paths but others form vital links in the network serving the village.
“Angus Council has statutory rights and some authority over these roads, relating to public benefit and safety mainly, but it has no obligation to deal with repairs. Rights, authority and obligations are not well balanced.
Lottery could bring in £20,000-a-year
“Letham’s Village Lottery grew from a conversation about fundraising to manage and maintain the unadopted roads to a stage where Angus Council would adopt them.”
Half the net profit from the scheme goes to local good causes.
“It is early days for Letham’s Village Lottery and community support has been encouraging.
“In one year, the target is for 10% of the population to purchase one £2 ticket each week.
“Turnover would be about £20,000 per annum and if sustained year after year, Letham residents should see a real difference.”
Angus unadopted roads survey ‘like pouring money into an open-ended bucket’
Arbroath West and Letham Liberal Democrat councillor Richard Moore won support for a motion asking authority chief executive Margo Williamson to write to the Holyrood and Westminster governments asking to consider a grant system.
Critics branded the exercise a waste of time and money because of the existing pressures on the council budget.
Fellow Letham councillor Alex King said the scheme would be like pouring cash into an “open-ended bucket” and said householders should be aware of the pitfalls attached to living on an unadopted road.
“If you can’t afford the obligation, then you really shouldn’t be buying the house,” he said.
The visionary figure who founded what would become Angus’ largest village
When ‘Honest George’ Dempster founded Letham he established a feu system to help sustain the village.
The Feuars’ Committee continues its good work to this day, but the intervening 220-plus years has seen the community expand beyond anything he might have imagined.
The son of the 2nd Laird of Dunnichen, Dempster was a leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th and early 19th centuries, and during almost three decades as an MP for the Perth Burghs he gained a reputation as an independently minded and incorruptible politician.
He served a Provost of St Andrews and other accomplishments included founding the Dundee Banking Company, which also bore his name, in 1763.
Dempster’s later years were spent dedicated to improving agriculture, fishing and the lives of tenants such as those in the village he founded.
He died at Dunnichen, just outside Letham in early 1818, and was interred at Forfar’s Restenneth Priory.
