What next for a Sutherland in need of salvation?
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COLUMN: The Way I See It by Jim McGillivray
It is not yet the season of the Bard, but already a line comes to mind – “To see oursels as ithers see us”. This was brought about through an email exchange with a despondent European investor frustrated at being unable to bring a multi-million Euro investment to the Helmsdale area despite his best efforts for almost 7 years.
In an extended narrative in impeccable English – which made me ashamed to acknowledge I could only correspond in English – the following lines leapt out at me:
The global agenda is about climate change, lethal heatwaves, rising sea levels and the future livelihood of our civilisation.
The UK’s national agenda is about achieving carbon neutrality, transitioning to new energies and averting an imminent fuel crisis.
The Highland Council’s agenda is about visibility, wildland and peat.
I trust the reader can sense the sheer angst in his words. We certainly have no shortage of peat, to the extent that the Council EDI Committee last week nodded through the nomination of the Flow Country as a World Heritage Site. If that comes about, it may have far-reaching economic benefits for eco-tourism. I however struggle to see how looking at peat can be translated into hard cash for local communities and businesses.
We in Sutherland are now in an era of economic recession, cost-of-living crisis, food poverty, fuel poverty, housing poverty, and increasingly chronic depopulation. The Scottish Government’s budgetary situation, to be laid before us on December 15, will be challenging in the extreme. Highland Council is facing a budget deficit of around £40 million in the next financial year. Council administrations have never been greatly interested in Sutherland, so even less chance of much salvation now.
What do we have at our disposal, apart from meagre ward discretionary funds? At this moment we are looking to allocate to qualifying community projects from the following pots:
Community Led-Local Development (£909k) but this is pan-Highland
Highland Coastal Communities Fund – Sutherland allocation is £683,408.23
Place Based Investment Programme – Sutherland allocation is £85,200
But even at this preliminary stage these funds are vastly oversubscribed.
As we have no shortage of peat, we have no shortage of land. Sutherland extends to some 1.3 million acres of which, as identified by Andy Wightman, 1.2 million acres are at the whim of very few individuals. Even with large tracts removed as “wildland”, there is much remaining which can be put to good economic benefit, and there is substantial private investment waiting to supplement the failing public sector and provide rural jobs, housing and opportunity for our young people and their families.
It may be controversial to some people, but if it was not for windfarm (and other) community benefit funds, there would be nothing happening in Sutherland at all. Senior citizens contribute much to our communities, but there are streets in our villages composed mainly of pensioners and holiday homes. We surely need thriving younger generations as well to mitigate the present socio-economic decline.
Jim McGillivray is the councillor for the East Sutherland and Edderton ward.
