Marie Macklin CBE visited local community group Celebrate Kilmarnock to share the HALO journey and reveal her inspiration behind the innovative regeneration project set to revitalise the town.

Speaking as part of Celebrate Kilmarnock’s ‘K-Talks: Conversations to Inspire our Communities’, Marie explained how the HALO will create a dynamic commercial, educational, cultural, leisure and lifestyle quarter of the town, fuelled by renewable energy, where people can Live, Work, Learn and Play.

Marie explained how the HALO, a £63m brownfield urban regeneration project on a 23-acre site, formerly the home of Johnnie Walker, will be the first town centre net zero carbon energy project in Scotland – a “Community Urban Village” setting the standard for low carbon energy sites across the UK.

Celebrate Kilmarnock is a community of passionate stakeholders helping to transform Kilmarnock one step at a time. The aim of the K-Talks series is to hold conversations that will inspire the town and spark some renewed enthusiasm and thinking about what the community needs.

Marie Macklin CBE, Founder and Executive Chair of HALO Urban Regeneration Company, said: “I’ve really enjoyed speaking to the everyone at the Celebrate Kilmarnock K-Talk series. I always find it so inspiring when I meet people who are as passionate and positive about Kilmarnock’s future as I am.

“This town and the local community have so much to offer and it has been a year of real personal pride for me as in October we started construction of the HALO’s Phase One – the Enterprise and Innovation Hub.

“I’d like to thank everyone at Celebrate Kilmarnock for inviting me to such an incredible event and look forward to helping build a positive Kilmarnock which we can all celebrate and be proud of.”

The K-Talks event also had a Christmas collection on behalf of Above Adventure who are supporting food banks throughout Ayrshire and the Children’s Wards at Crosshouse Hospital this Christmas.