Because the cash would come from the Council's Area Top Up Budget for community projects – and total funding from that source is limited to £52,000 this financial year - members of the Marr Area Committee had previously agreed to lay down criteria by which applications for assistance with Christmas decorations could be approved.

At their meeting at Braemar, last week, members agreed that applications that would not be supported would be the installation of electricity sockets on lamp standards already scheduled for replacement; the purchase or lease of Christmas lights that do not meet the requirements of the Council's Roads Service, in terms of size and weight; and the cost of repairing or storing lights or decorations.
For potentially successful applications there will be a maximum limit on the level of funding awards: £3,000 per community; a time limit set, to avoid repeat applications being submitted, year after year; and a requirement for matching funding.

The committee agreed to donate £3,000 to Donside Community Council, towards the cost of installing sockets on lamp standards in Main Street, Alford, to allow Christmas lights to be put up in the village, later this year. Total cost of the project will be £10,000.

The committee also agreed to provide £750 of funding from the Top Up Budget towards the re-creation of a "Newfoundlander wartime logging camp on Deeside." The project, a tribute to the work of volunteer loggers from Newfoundland, during World War Two, is being developed by Ballater Historic Forestry Project Association, in association with Ballater and Crathie Community Council and other local groups. Total cost of the project will be £1,500, with the Glen Muick Estate having offered the Association the use of an estate sawmill for the project.
Councillors had expressed concern that the donation might go unused for some time, until the project could get off the ground but agreed to approval, after area manager Leslie Allan said that the problem with that view was that the estate concerned was keen to remove the sawmill and it might no longer be available, when it was decided the project could go ahead.

A further £1,000 from the Top Up Budget will go to the Royal Deeside and the Cairngorms Destination Management Organisation, which is setting up a Hill and River Exhibition at Braemar Castle. The cost of that project will be £20,000 and will run at the castle from August to October this year. Local Councillor Marcus Humphrey said that such an exhibition would help keep the castle "sustainable" and bring people into the nearby village of Braemar.