£22.5k for Cape Wrath community land buyout
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A remote village community has been given a major boost in its unusual bid to buy land in a bombing range to increase its use as a tourist attraction.
The site in Sutherland is near the famous lighthouse at Cape Wrath, mainland Britain’s most northerly point.
Now the Scottish Land Fund (SLF) has awarded £22,500 to a development group to work up a business plan and feasibility study so that locals at the nearest village of Durness – 10 miles away – can buy 111 acres of the cape.
Durness Development Group (DDG) said it has six months to submit its scheme, which would include asking for the money to buy the only land the Ministry of Defence (MoD) does not own at the cape, which for 120 days of the year is a bombing range.
DDG director Neil Fuller said the award from the SLF meant that it was now pushing ahead with one of the country’s most unusual community buyouts.
Once DDG has worked up a proposal for a bunkhouse and toilets, it is likely to come back and ask for most of the £58,000 it believes it will need to buy the land – and also the money to develop the scheme.
Residents at Durness are mounting a community buyout under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
There was once a full-time community of around 35 people living on the Cape in the 1930s. Today it is just John Ure, who runs the cafe by the lighthouse. He is also planning to install a public toilet and bunkhouse nearby.
At the centre of the unusual community buyout is just 111 acres around Cape Wrath Lighthouse.
Three years ago the MoD was halted in its £58,000 purchase of the land from the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB), which would have added to the 25,000 acres it already owns in the area.
The then First Minister Alex Salmond said: "If the community is able to go ahead and successfully purchase the land, it will secure a stronger local economy for the people of Durness and preserve one of Scotland’s iconic landscapes for generations to come.
"Put bluntly, we would see more benefits for the local area rather than more land for bombing – the principal use the rest of the cape is put to by the MoD."
The then Scottish Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse approved an application by DDG to register a community interest in the site.
It means that the community have to be given first option to buy if the NLB goes ahead with plans to sell the land.
"The NLB’s intention is to sell and trigger the right-to-buy – which they are yet to do," said Mr Fuller.
"We are delighted to have received the money for the feasibility study and full business plan.
"We have six months in which to go to the next stage and work up proposals and ask for the money to buy and develop the site.
"It has to be a viable business. Public toilets and a bunkhouse will be the main priority as well as looking after this unique site. But it is vital for the future of the area."
Because of the community’s interest, the MoD announced in 2014 that it had decided "not to proceed" with the purchase of land around the 400-feet high light, built in 1828 by Robert Louis Stevenson’s grandfather Robert, with the installation of three new major gun battery sites.
