Council backs Skye Fairy Pools project with £100k
COUNCILLORS have approved the allocation of a six-figure sum to a community group that wants to improve the facilities at Skye’s famous Fairy Pools.
Members of the Highland Council approved the allocation of £100,000 from the Town and Countryside Regeneration budget, which will be used to upgrade facilities at the Fairy Pools near Glenbrittle. The funding will be used to build a bigger car park, improve the road surface and install toilet facilities at the popular tourist attraction.
The project aims to alleviate escalating problems with traffic and visitor management at the scenic spot which attracted 100,000 visitors last year.
The Minginish Community Hall Association, the group behind the project, hopes the grant will encourage more donors to come forward.
Project officer for the association Richard Powell said: ‘The £100,000 allocated to the project is great news. We have been working with Highland Council since the start and couldn’t have got this far without its support. It has already provided some financial backing to the work done so far, but this large sum towards the infrastructure work will allow us to start making real progress and hopefully will persuade other grant funders that the project is worth supporting.’
Although a sizeable figure, the £100,000 investment will count for just a fifth of the overall budget for the planned works.
Mr Powell explained: ‘Overall, the project is forecast to cost in the region of £ 500,000, but we hope this first lot of money will allow us to at least access enough funds to begin work this winter.’
The team’s plan is to expand the car park to a total of 157 spaces, although there are also ambitions to build toilet facilities and erect information boards, all in-keeping with the landscape.
It is hoped that this will be the first step to solving the problems of overcrowding and congestion on the small, single-track road, which has at times impacted on emergency services’ response time
Mr Powell continued: ‘Although we may not initially be able to stop everyone parking on the verges, removing an additional 100 cars will make a huge difference and hopefully prevent the mountain rescue being delayed again.’
The news of the funding, and the beginning of works, will be welcome relief to many of the residents who live or work near Glenbrittle and the surrounding area.
Skye councillor Calum MacLeod, who helped to approve the funding, commented: ‘This has been long overdue.
‘Numbers of visitors to the Fairy Pools have been increasing and for that we are grateful. This brings a lot of opportunities but also a lot of challenges, and so it is good to see community groups working to improve the situation.
‘The Fairy Pools is just one of many visitor pinch points on Skye. We’re trying to minimise damaging headlines about tourism on the island as it’s such a big economic force, so it’s about just trying to manage visitors’ and locals’ expectations. New facilities will make a huge difference as the attraction is not coping at all at the moment.’