An independent community, proud of its town

A highlight of the year is the Hogmanay Street Party, when young and old come together in the town centre to celebrate the arrival of the new year. Visitors are warmly welcomed to see in the new year, but most of the people on the streets are locals, who welcome the opportunity to meet and chat.

A sense of place, personified by people.

The street party is not a rare opportunity to come together: with its High Street of independent shops and choice of cafés, bars and restaurants, Grantown-on-Spey is almost designed to encourage a pause and a chat. It is in fact a planned town, a Georgian town built with period architecture, a tree-lined square and an award-winning museum.

Although Grantown is a historic town, it's definitely not stuck in the past. The highly-regarded high school and welcomes a bustling school population on weekdays, with many returning to the leisure centre in the evenings and at weekends. A strong sense of community can be seen in the events that take place throughout the year, organised by local people for local people, and popular with everyone.

Life and work in balance.

With the ever-growing popularity of the Cairngorms National Park, the town has been able to provide opportunities to all sorts of new businesses, many connected to the rural economy of the Cairngorms and the traditional occupations that continue to thrive here. Others are new industries, set up by people who have seized the opportunity to live and work in the location they could only visit on holiday before.