Landowners need to work with us to stop depopulation

The Way I See It by Jim McGillivray

Embo is a nice wee village. Why should I go anywhere when I’m here already?

A population of around 250 in 155 or so houses. A nice size. Right enough, there are about 20 holiday homes, not unusual for a tourist destination, but of more concern is that there are only 14 homes which have bairns – that’s counting babes in arms to 18 year olds.

Almost all recent house sales have been snapped up by incomers. I hasten to say that new blood is very welcome, and young new blood with families even more so, but it would be a nice change if some of our own young people could compete in the housing market and be able to live in their home village. But for that there must be full-time permanent pensionable jobs and these are few.

The population of Sutherland as a whole is forecast to fall dramatically over the coming decade because we can’t offer the jobs and housing to retain our young people.

There’s plenty space for houses as the county extends to 1.3 million acres. Unfortunately, 1.2 million acres are in the possession of fewer than 100 landowners. It’s the residue of a feudal system of land tenure against which Land Reform Acts have made little impression.

Some data to consider: Durness Primary School (P1-P7) has five pupils and four in nursery; Scourie has 13 and three respectively; Kinlochbervie has 20 and six, with 39 pupils in KLB High School.

This is drastic! The north-west economy is disintegrating. And yet the largest landowner in Sutherland – and Scotland – has set his face totally against the A’Mhoine rocket range even to the extent of sticking £1.43 million into partnering with Lockheed Martin, a company with close connections to Trump’s US military machine, in the Unst/Shetland project.

Not only that but he uses his vast wealth to seek a judicial review to block the A’Mhoine development and the economic regeneration which would ensue.

I’m sure he can well afford to stick a couple of million into the Sutherland economy but that may not fit his motives. His aim seems to be the total rewilding of the whole north of the county in the name of environmental conservation.

I don’t really understand what rewilding means, but it seems to have involved the slaughter of significant numbers of red deer, that most iconic of Highland animals, from what I have been told. But there must be more to it than that, and perhaps I need more education in the subject. I keep an open mind.

I hope Anders Holch Povlsen also has an open mind. There are small steps from benign philosophy to mild eccentricity to rigid harmful ideology, and democratically-elected Sutherland councillors have a duty to find out where on the scale he sits.

Which is why, with every sympathy for his recent personal tragedy, he should meet with us, answer our questions and listen to our concerns. We really need to talk to this man now.

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