Why try to attract people when there are no houses?

Your correspondent Colin Morrison describes the buyout of Ulva as transformational, and I am sure that it will be.

The only aspect with which I disagree is that it is the taxpayer that will be providing most of the funds.

Despite all of the support for the project that Mr Morrison applauds, I understand that £4.4 million came from the taxpayer and £37,500 from supporters.

That puts matters into perspective – £0.0375 million compared with £4.4 million!

I have studied the business plan to which he refers and it is all entirely speculative, and once again most of the money is to be from the taxpayer.

He states that ‘repopulation is central to our plans precisely because of the acute lack of available housing in north-west Mull and Ulva’.

Surely this is a complete contradiction; why try to attract more people to the area when there are no houses for them? In fact, I know that at least one housing association is already planning to build more houses on Mull at various sites on the island.

In times past, islands such as Ulva supported a large population, but most of them lived in dire poverty.

Nowadays it would be much more sensible to locate people nearer to services that they will need, such as schools, shops and hospitals. That can be achieved much more reliably and