Three Funds, One Pitch: Chirnside Primary School
Bringing funds together for community impact.
You may be surprised to learn that primary schools in Scotland have no statutory obligation to provide playground equipment or sporting facilities. Rising living costs have also placed increasing pressure on local authority budgets available to support these types of resources. As a result, community funds are seeing a growing number of applications for projects of this kind. This is the story of one such project, and how community funds came together to offer combined support.
Chirnside Primary School's multi-use games area (MUGA) had reached the end of its useful life. The old tarmac surface was unsuitable for winter use, restricted in summer, and increasingly worn. For a school of 209 pupils, an 80-strong junior football club, and a wider community with few sporting spaces in the area, this facility was in need of revitalisation.
Chirnside Community Council, working with the primary school, Parent Council and junior football club, championed a plan to resurface the MUGA with AstroTurf — a durable, all-weather pitch with a rubber underlay and timed lighting, designed to serve pupils during the day and the wider community after hours.
The total project cost was just over £34,000. After nearly two years of fundraising, they had managed to secure £30,500. However, that still left a shortfall before work could begin.Rather than one grant closing that gap, three separate Foundation Scotland funds stepped in together to offer support:
| Fund | Amount |
| Drone Hill Fund | £500 |
| BT Fund | £1,500 |
| Foundation Scotland internal fund | £1,500 |
| Combined contribution | £3,500 |
Each fund made its award independently, but collectively they moved the project over the finish line, reflecting Foundation Scotland's ability to think across multiple grants programmes, to support a community project.
The resurfaced MUGA has been used well beyond initial projections:
• 500 individuals benefited, more than double the original estimate — a local fitness group now trains on the pitch twice weekly (10–20 people per session), and a hockey group has also been granted regular use.
• The junior football club has a reliable, safe winter training facility for the first time.
• School PE lessons, playtimes and after-school clubs all use the upgraded space.
This project shows how modest, targeted awards from different Foundation Scotland funds can combine to unlock a much larger community asset. Together, Drone Hill, the BT Fund and Foundation Scotland's internal fund gave the Community Council the final push needed to convert a long-standing ambition into a facility now serving the school, sports clubs and residents of Chirnside for years to come.
By sharing knowledge across funds and teams, rather than assessing applications in isolation, this cross-team collaboration is what allows Foundation Scotland to move beyond single-grant thinking. Colleagues are flagging relevant funds to one another and coordinating timing so that awards land together rather than piecemeal, turning a set of modest awards into the difference between a project stalling and a project succeeding.