Now National Trust chiefs tell islanders: Sort out your own future
ITS windswept beauty and thousands of seabirds attract 10,000 visitors a year.
But it has been far more difficult to find people willing to actually stay there.
Over the past decade, the Inner Hebridean island of Canna has seen at least 30 new residents come... and go.
No matter how much the island’s owner, the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) prepared them, they left, some with bitter accusations of broken promises.
Now the remaining 15 residents have been told by NTS to sort it out themselves. They have been given the responsibility for secur- ing their future by bringing new people to the island via the local development trust.
‘We have to move beyond a paternalistic model,’ said NTS head of natural heritage Dominic Driver. ‘We need to support the local community to develop itself.’
The move follows the departure of the latest family – and Canna’s only young children. Last month, Gordon and Denise Guthrie quit the island after 18 months, accusing the NTS of failing to live up to a plan to attract more families.
After moving to a farm cottage in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, Mr Guthrie said: ‘We were led up the garden path from the outset. The NTS doesn’t want a community there, despite talking a good game about it. It’s going to end up deserted, like St Kilda.’
The Guthries’ four children had been the only pupils at the island’s single-room school. It will now be mothballed by the development trust, which has set no new target for the number of residents.
Instead, in a £100,000 project part-funded by NTS, the locals will develop a green energy system based on a wind turbine and solar panels.
Development trust chairman Geraldine Mackinnon said the long-term aim was to have ‘a stable, increased and vibrant population’ – but added: ‘We need to be aware of not facing ourselves with too many projects. Although it would be good to have the primary school open, it is not a priority.’
Local Nationalist MP Ian Blackford recently visited Canna and has held talks with the NTS.
He said: ‘We need calm discussion, with a shoulders-to-thewheel approach by all those responsible, including the NTS and public agencies. Canna is a wonderful island that needs and deserves a sustainable future.’