The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Proposed spa could bring in healthy return for north
Development: Billionaire wants to build new facility on Kinloch Estate
There is optimism that a proposed health spa in one of the most remote and sparsely populated areas of Scotland could trigger a local construction and tourism jobs boom.
Wildland Limited, owned by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, Scotland’s second largest private landowner, plans to build the facility near the lodge on his Kinloch Estate in Sutherland.
The vision for the facility, near Tongue, is for a spa with pools, treatment and changing facilities, health bar, restaurant, lounge areas, library, meeting rooms and administration offices.
More detail will be revealed at a day-long public consultation in the village at the end of the month.
Edinburgh-based Groves-Raines Architects, which will host the event, have described the development as both “a business venture and something for the community”.
A planning application has not yet been submitted.
The exhibition is at Tongue Village Hall on November 28 from 10am to 5pm.
Wildland Ltd says if an application follows there will be an opportunity to formally register comments on the project at that stage.
Mr Povlsen, owner of clothing house Bestseller, owns three Sutherland estates – 18,000-acre Kinloch, 22,000- acre Hope and 24,000-acre Ben Loyal.
He previously bought the 43,000-acre Glenfeshie Estate which has since grown by 4,000 acres with the acquisition of neighbouring farmland.
His Highland portfolio also includes the 30,000acre Braeroy Estate near Fort William.
Last year, he bought the 20,000-acre Gaick Estate from designer goods guru
“A business venture and something for the community”
Xavier Louis Vuitton and the £15million Aldourie Castle estate on the Loch Ness shoreline and the 12,600- acre Lynaberack and Ruthven Estate, near Kingussie. Mr Povlsen is still a little way behind Scotland’s largest private landowner, however. The Duke of Buccleuch has 240,000 acres.