Tension builds on ‘Bond island’
Great Bernera's ‘absentee' crofting landlord has been condemned by the island's MSP for allegedly forcing islanders to come up with huge sums of money before he will allow them to sell their properties.
The island, often just called Bernera, lies in Loch Roig off the north west coast of Lewis, measuring eight square miles in size, with a listed population of around 250 people.
Great Bernera has been owned since 2012 by the 26-year-old grandson of Count Robin de La Lanne-Mirrlees, who originally bought the island in 1962. The community has been working to try to buy the island since 2015.
A statement, on behalf of MSP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar Alasdair Allan, said: ‘There are now a growing number of examples coming to light where local people are seemingly being hampered in their ability to complete the selling of their property, or begin to build on land in Bernera, due to fresh obstacles being put in place by Germany-based landlord Cyran de La Lanne.
‘Bernera Estate has reportedA ly been repeatedly attempting to use these transactions to demand substantial financial ‘compensation' from locals.'
Dr Allan added: ‘For people in the Western Isles to be bound by the increasingly unreasonable whims of an absentee landlord is, in my view, completely unacceptable.
‘Holding up local development, by demanding that people cough up thousands of pounds before they can complete legitimate transactions, is causing real distress and a number of people have been in touch with me about their own situations. I have written to the Scottish Government to highlight this matter and will do all I can to assist constituents. In the meantime, the landlord is, I would hope, reconsidering these ill-judged demands for payment.'
Dr Allan plans to ask the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon directly about her view on the situation at First Minister's Questions today (Thursday).
The Oban Times has contacted Cyran de La Lanne for comment.
The late Robin Ian Evelyn
Milne Stuart de La LanneMirrlees retired to Great Bernera after buying it in 1962, remaining in a crofthouse there until his death in 2012.
The popular Laird of Bernera had never set eyes on the place before, but soon fell in love with the rugged island.
The multi-lingual, Oxfordeducated Scottish aristocrat, a long-time friend of James Bond author Ian Fleming, was an inspiration for 007.
In the 1963 novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 007’s cover as ‘Sir Hilary Bray’ was based on Count Robin’s then position as a heraldic researcher at the College of Arms in
London.
Mirrlees discovered that the line of the Bonds of Peckham bore the family motto ‘The World is Not Enough’, which Fleming appropriated for Bond’s own family.
It went on to be the basis for the 1999 film starring Pierce Brosnan.
In a ballot held after Mirrlees, the Prince of Coronata, a descendant of King Louis Philippe I of France and godson of the 11th Duke of Argyll, died in a Stornoway nursing home, 85 per cent of Great Bernera’s community voted to buy the island.