Could youth exodus cause next St Kilda?

IT is a tiny, windswept archipelago in the North Atlantic that was inhabited for hundreds of years.

But faced with problems including a steadily dwindling population, the last 36 of St Kilda’s islanders were finally evacuated to the mainland in 1930.

Now residents of other Scottish islands are warning that their communities could become ‘the next St Kilda’ because of an exodus of young people.

They outlined their fears as the Scottish Government was criticised for producing ‘toothless’ regeneration proposals.

During a meeting of Holyrood’s rural economy committee, the National Islands Plan was criticised for failing to have meaningful targets and objectives for improving life in remote settlements.

Islands Minister Paul Wheelhouse was unable to give a precise figure when asked how much it would cost to implement the 70page plan, launched last month.

The document has been produced to tackle issues such as declining population and the transport challenges faced in Scotland’s most remote areas.

Mr Wheelhouse said that, during consultations on the plan, some islands ‘were actually worried that they are going to be the next St Kilda, so that’s pretty dramatic language’. He added: ‘It is actually a real threat they face because they have no young people or they have lost young people.

‘So how do we help those islands at this critical point in their history – where they are at a tipping point where they start to lose essential services because they can’t staff them any longer?’

The population of St Kilda – 40 miles west of the Western Isles – made the joint decision to relocate to the mainland after their numbers had been depleted by factors including the First World War and a deadly flu epidemic.

North East Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Rumbles criticised the Government’s plan for the islands as lacking ‘smart objectives’.

His comments were mirrored in submissions made to the committee by local authorities as well as other organisations.

The Mull and Iona Community Trust warned that the document does not set out a clear direction and practical approach.

It also complained that the blueprint appeared to be ‘toothless’ and said it feared it would become a ‘tick box exercise’. Orkney

Council said there were ‘no defined outcome targets, timescales or measurement of success’. Western Isles Council said there was a lack of post-Brexit planning.

At Holyrood yesterday, the committee’s convener, Edward Mountain, told Mr Wheelhouse there was ‘no definitive cost’ for the plan to address the looming ‘depopulation crisis’ that is facing Scotland’s islands.

On the question of the plan’s objectives, Mr Wheelhouse said data did not exist to indicate progress in some cases.