ScottishPower has been accused of turning its back on communities hit by the closure of Longannet.
The claim comes after three local projects had their bids for funding from the energy giant’s independent charity arm rejected.
ScottishPower has insisted all applications are reviewed impartially but members of the Longannet Initiative Strategic Partnership (LISP), established to give locals a say in the Scottish Government taskforce set up at the time of the closure, say they feel let down and abandoned.
They claim that in the two years since the closure, ScottishPower has done nothing to communicate with local communities, or to tackle the fallout arising from the loss of 230 direct jobs and an estimated 1,000 indirect jobs, at a cost of £50 million a year to the local economy.
Campaigners say that when Longannet shut they were told legacy funding would be available from the ScottishPower Foundation.
However, none of the latest grants – benefiting 17 charities to the tune of more than £1m – are Longannet-related.
The Coalfields Regeneration Trust and West Fife Enterprise both applied for funding for training schemes but were knocked back, along with a third bid from another local group.
LISP member Trevor Docherty said the message seemed to be “We have shut up shop and you are getting nothing”.
He added: “They (ScottishPower) are a multi-national, which has reaped the financial benefits of this power station for almost 50 years, but now they don’t want to engage with the community in any way, and they certainly don’t seem to want to spend a penny helping us recover from their plant’s closure.”
Fellow member, Kincardine Community Council chairman, Donald Campbell added: “The former Kincardine Power station was demolished 20 years ago, but Scottish Power have done nothing with this site and there is a fear that the same again will happen with Longannet.”
West Fife Enterprise general manager Simon Warr said it was hugely disappointing that the firm “seem to be washing their hands of any responsibility” for the fallout.
“Ironically among the additional courses we hoped to offer was a qualification on demolition skills, which might have come in handy now a contractor has been appointed to demolish the power station,” he added.
The Coalfields Regeneration Trust’s Scottish trustee Nicky Wilson said it was the only non-governmental organisation which had taken positive action to help the area.
While it invested £250,000 to create a training and enterprise hub, with match funding from the Scottish Government via Fife Council, its application for funding was also rejected.
A ScottishPower spokesman insisted the firm remained actively engaged with local communities, citing the Valleyfield Liaison Group as an example.
“Our community team will contact LISP, and we believe that we can work positively with them going forward,” he said.
The spokesman stressed the foundation was an independent charity which reviewed all funding requests impartially, adding: “Funding awards are purely made based on the merits of individual projects against very specific criteria.”
