Tongue Community Council warned that land sale opposition could jeopardise £10.5m North Coast Health and Social Care Hub plan

A SENIOR Highland Council official has warned Tongue Community Council that it is putting in jeopardy a plan for a new North Coast Health and Social Care Hub if it continues to oppose a land sale between the authority and Wildland Ltd.

Highland Council is progressing the £10.5 million hub on a site at the Glebe, Tongue, in conjunction with NHS Highland and environmental and tourism company Wildland, owned by Danish entrepreneur and local landowner Anders Holch Povlsen.

Wildland is to build the hub and lease it to the two authorities.

Plans for the development have been on display and it and a planning application is being submitted.

But Tongue community councillors were taken aback to learn at their November meeting that as part of the agreement between the three parties, Highland Council owned land in front of Lundies House, Tongue, run by Wildland as a luxury small hotel, was to be sold to the firm.

The land in question was the original site pinpointed for the care hub. Concerned that the ground was to be developed, Wildland stepped in and the subsequent agreement was reached.

But community councillors maintain that they had not been made aware of the land transaction and the ground should be retained in local authority ownership.

The council's head of resources Brian Porter attended the community council's December meeting and told members: "The care hub being delivered on the Glebe - that only happens by virtue of this partnership and the land transaction described."

Mr Porter added: "If somehow the intention of this land transaction has not come to light, I can only apologise."

Community council chairman Andrew Gunn said: "I feel that a gun is being held to our heads. The problem is that Wildland is so acquisitive. The land at Lundies could have been kept in community ownership with a guarantee that it would not be built on."

Community councillor Dorothy Pritchard said it was a "fait accompli".

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