Isle be back: Fresh hope as young people return to
Communities celebrate signs of revival as
smcdonald@sundaypost.com
The tide may be turning for Scotland’s embattled islands as their dwindling populations are on the rebound, claim experts.
Young people are moving in; millennials pumping new life into communities, working the land, launching businesses and sending their children to nurseries and primary schools. Some are island-born and returning for good, others are newcomers from as far away as the US.
The turnaround has been revealed by Islands Revival – a group including more than 20 stakeholders, as well as Scotland’s Rural College, academics from Aberdeen’s James Hutton Institute and Outer Hebrides-based Community Development Lens (CODEL).
They report “credible evidence of green shoots of population turnaround” but say official figures have still to catch up and properly capture the trend.
Theona Morrison, who has lived on Uist for 30 years, is one of the founders and directors of CODEL. She told The Sunday Post: “Island life is not a backwater or in any way backwards.
“It is very able and articulate young people, who have often been through higher education and have travelled the world, who have chosen in this new age to come here.
“Our research has shown that, out of 469 people in their 20s and 30s on Uist, 30% were returners, 20% were new to the island and the others were those who had chosen to stay and not move away.
“It showed a much better figure than the 2011 Census projections for the Outer Hebrides that suggested the young demographic numbers were going to fall off a cliff.”
The upturn is being put down to better connectivity, with the introduction of superfast broadband and 4G enabling people to work from almost anywhere. But job and economic opportunities are also being cited. And Island Revival reckons young people are attracted to the sustainability of island life, its environmental assets, and a sense of community and well-being.
According to Codel’s research, among them the young people surveyed have 253 children, four out of 10 of whom are there because their parents chose to settle or return.
Numbers in mums and tots groups are reported to have doubled and nurseries that take the youngest children are full. North Uist’s new school had almost 90 pupils last year, nearly 20 more than expected.
Citing moves to centralise certain services like dentistry on the island, the CODEL director said: “We are saying you have to plan for growth, not for decline. Millennials know they don’t have to work in cities any more. It chimes with a global trend that young people can choose where they want to live and have a different lifestyle to that of living in a 10th-floor flat in an expensive block in the city because that is where the work is.
“People say we don’t have enough jobs, but we have more than we can fill. Islands present opportunity.”
Martin Johnson, interim director of strategy and regional economy at Highlands and Islands Enterprise, said more still had to be done to attract people to remote areas.
He said: “Young people are vital to future prosperity. Creating conditions that make the region attractive to them has always been challenging.
“New developments such as the expansion of BASF Pharma in Lewis, the creation of a new research and innovation campus in Orkney, islands communities connecting to full-fibre broadband and more land coming into community ownership all add to the attractiveness of our islands.
“However, there is still more to be done – we need to grow businesses and communities and infrastructure to build on our success.”