Second Clearances

The new edition of the SLR has a great piece on what I call the Second Clearances, Fàilte gu la Nouvelle Dordogne.

Iain Fraser Grigor asks:

"As a tidal wave of wealthy White Settlers and holiday-homers pours into the old Rough Bounds of west Lochaber, Iain Fraser Grigor asks - how long now till there is no room left for the native Highlander? Once it was known as the most Highland area of mainland Scotland - the old Jacobite na Garbh Chriochan or Rough Bounds of west Lochaber, arcing in a gracious crescent from Ardnamurchan in the south to the soft lands of Morar and the fishing port of Mallaig in the north. But in the last decade a property-price tsunami has rolled north across the Highlands, powered by the long, hot housing boom in the distant Home Counties of southern England. And if it goes on much longer - locals are now beginning to urgently ask - then for how much longer will the indigenous population of the area withstand the pressures of wealth, and the irresistable purchasing-power that marches with it hand in hand?

The problem is not just one of rich White Settlers moving up and in for good and driving property prices sky-high in the process. Many properties in the area are already holiday homes, empty for much of
the year while locals look on in silent wonder. Meantime for locals with the cash to self-build their own houses they face a savage shortage of land for such development - almost incredible in a district with an average population density of four people per square mile. Incredible, perhaps - but true. Charlie King, Highland council member for the Mallaig and Morar area bluntly says "Where do you want me to begin?"

3 comments

Gus wrote: "Meantime for locals with the cash to self-build their own houses they face a savage shortage of land for such development"

Available lots for purchase are relatively easy to find in the Highlands. However, there is a much larger problem... I have several friends who have had their home-building plans denied by the Highland planning boards. Seems the planning boards are being pressured by the 'established' residents to discourage 'over-building' in the Highlands which they fear will spoil the view for the tourists.

I havve seen conceptual drawings of future plans to 'rejuvenate' Fort William, however, there is the tug of war within the communities where people fear that too much change and modernisation will spoil the landscape.

Tough choices. Perserve the wilderness, or provide affordable homes for the indiginous population.

left by Niniane on 16 November 2005

Linklater's Scotland
MAGNUS LINKLATER

DONALD DEWAR once said that people who live and work in rural areas cannot do so in a museum. The more we try to protect and conserve the countryside, the more we risk turning it into a miniature Brigadoon - a place of mist and mountains that exists in our imagination rather than for real. He thought that without people, a rural community was lost. "There must," he said, "be ways of integrating the economic, the social and the environmental, and the desire to live 21st-century lives, with maintaining Scotland's beauty." That was nearly ten years ago. The problem he was talking about has not gone away.

Everyone agrees that rural Scotland needs to be defended, that small communities should be protected against polluters, developers, planners, intruders, too many outsiders coming in, or too few people to make them viable. What no one quite understands is that the very act of protecting the countryside can at the same time stifle it. The biggest complaint you hear these days from country folk is about the sheer, deadening weight of bureaucracy. Farmers groan under it, small businesses are smothered by it, anyone unlucky enough to find themselves inside a conservation area knows that no step can be taken without filling in a form in triplicate or tripping over a hidden quango. For every grant accepted, there is a plethora of rules, guidelines, strictures and prohibitions following in its wake.

It is not just the red tape itself that irritates, it is the way in which, gradually, it sucks power away from the people most directly affected by it. Instead of having their own say on how they live, decisions are taken by shadowy forces far removed from them, in offices where men in suits stare at computer screens and determine what is best for their homes and shops, their schools, buses and businesses.

A sheaf of letters in local newspapers testifies to this frustration. "We have much to learn from the French about strengthening local government," a businessman in Dingwall writes. "The community [here] now seems to be utterly powerless to control its own destiny." A couple in Portree, desperately attempting to save their local school, say, "Members of the local community council have been so frustrated by the utter lack of interest in their views by the Highland Council that most of them have resigned." A correspondent in the Southern Reporter, complaining about the "catastrophic changes" threatening Galashiels because of the developments of a supermarket chain, comments sadly, "I am of an age to remember the workings of the old burgh and county councils, [which] took steps to advise the public fully of proposed developments."

Faced with the steamroller effect of outside interference, many communities feel they have no alternative but to join forces with the bureaucrats, adopting their language and philosophy. Others, however, have begun to hit back.

The little parish of Cairndow, at the head of Loch Fyne, in Argyll, has a population of not much more than 170 people. For four generations it has been part of a private estate, owned by the Noble family, whose wealth stemmed from engineering, and the great Armstrong shipbuilding and armaments company in the north-east of England. For much of that time, employment came from the estate itself. A photograph of a wedding taken in the 1950s shows the occupations of those pictured as gamekeepers, hydro-electric workers, laundry maids, cooks and gardeners. A similar group today shows a remarkable variety of employment, from contract gardeners to wild-boar farmers, fiddlers, theatre directors and bank managers.

And yet it retains a strong sense of its own identity, as Christina Noble realised a few years ago. She is a great-granddaughter of Andrew Noble, who first bought the estate of Ardkinglas from the Duke of Argyll in the 19th century. Born and bred in Cairndow, she felt the need to raise its profile - both among the locals and for the outside world. "If we are not aware of our own values, we become victims of other people's decisions," she says. "We have to bend to their agenda rather than ours, and that means not just a loss of trust in ourselves, but an aversion to risk, and an inability to take decisions of our own."

She, along with a group of local people, decided to launch an initiative called simply Here We Are. They began collecting old photographs, scrapbooks, letters, diaries, anything that helped define the history and geography of the place, and opened a small exhibition centre in a portacabin at Clachan, just off the A83. It grew, and with it the ambitions of the people involved.

Helped by a £50,000 grant from the Scottish Executive's rural challenge fund, they went on to raise funding for a bigger, purpose-built building, which became part-museum, part-study centre, part-tourist shop, part-economic regeneration initiative. Inside, it is dominated by giant image of the whole area. Detailed maps name every house, field and walk. A chart shows changes in the economy and landscape over the past 50 years - levels of rainfall, the number of pupils in the local school, the type of crops grown, the number of sheep, patterns of housing and employment. It is a source of fascination for visitors and of pride for local people.

Other organisations began to be drawn in. Funding came from the Crown Estate, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Europe and Argyll and Bute Council. They helped it become an outreach station for Argyll College, equipped with computers and video-conferencing facilities; it is used by the Loch Fyne Restaurant chain for staff training; it offers courses in foreign languages, book-keeping and computer skills; and it is a major tourist attraction. Last year Here We Are drew 14,000 visitors. The result of all this activity is a micro-economy. From a standing start, it now employs seven people part-time - all local, and all committed to an enterprise that simply did not exist before.

Now the Here We Are team are embarking on their latest venture - generating their own power, and even creating enough to sell to the national grid. They are exploring the possibilities of harnessing wind and hydro-power - the river once had its own turbine - in order to become self-sufficient in energy. They are campaigning on issues such as affordable housing, transport and education. They have become, in short, a genuine local enterprise, with a mind of their own and a determination to forge their own destiny rather than anyone else's.

"I am sometimes disheartened by our West Highland attitude - we won't take responsibility and ownership for ourselves," says Noble. "But we must show that we are more than just castles and tartans. It is what happens in a place that matters - who you are, what you do, who runs what.

"Most of what matters is done by individuals, not organisations, and we have them here. We are self-sufficient in attitude, and very tenacious. I know I'm arrogant, but you have to have the confidence to do things by yourself."

http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1984102005

left by teachdaireachd on 16 November 2005

I agree - having just rerturned fom Lewis the issue is clear about development - in this example renewables - where incomers object to preserve a rural idyll, which is itself a totally false construct. Speaking to someone backing the scheme - he said I have lived abroad and so have nothing against 'incomers', but dont move into an area and then stifle development and a local economy. This isnt anti-English, its pro-local democracy and local culture.

left by Gus on 17 November 2005