Am Bratach No. 208
February 2009
editor@bratach.co.uk

‘Positive feelings’ for forest trust becoming landowners

Group left ‘high and dry’ over log cabin

The North Sutherland Community Forest Trust, which we reported in December as expressing interest in purchasing up to 16,500 acres of mainly-afforested Forestry Commission land in Farr and Kildonan, is delighted with the public’s response to their proposals, but feel they still have some way to go in explaining what they are about.

Said trust chairman, Sandy Murray: “There were three meetings — one in Strathy, one in Bettyhill and one in Tongue — and the two on this side, the Strathy and the Bettyhill ones, were quite well attended, but there was a poorer attendance at Tongue, but it was all positive feelings that were coming forward from them — there was no negativity really — the only negativity we had was in relation to timber transport on the quality of roads, but that really is something that would have to be addressed whoever took over the forest. It wouldn’t matter who it is.

“That was really the only negativity that was coming out.”

Mr Murray, a crofter from Achiemore, Halladale, continued: “A lot of the comments were, you know, that it is a big step, it’s going to be ground-breaking and the like of that, but we know that. And there’s going to be an awful lot of work to actually put the whole thing together. The other issue that did come forward from the meetings was that the community was really unaware of what the trust are actually doing — we need to get our act together and have better public relations.

“We’ve taken that on board and upgraded the website. We’re going to start putting more information, like minutes, on the web pages. We’ve instructed somebody to do that now.”

Meanwhile, the trust is waiting to hear the price the district valuer will put on the forest. To help pay for the valuation — the Forestry Commission will pay half — a grant application has been made to the Highlands and Islands Enterprise Community Land Unit. “With this application in for funding, we are hopeful we may be able to get a project officer to take this whole project forward, to operate the land forest scheme,” added Mr Murray.
With the present financial crisis in mind, the trust has asked for the land to be valued in separate lots rather than as a whole, thus allowing bids of more modest proportions. “If they thought we couldn’t raise money for the whole lot, we could cherry-pick the bits that we thought were most advantageous to the community,” explained Mr Murray.

It’s not all been plain sailing for the 6-year-old organisation, admitted the chairman. “We’ve got the log cabin [at Borgie]. It’s all finished and complete, but it’s not used at the moment because we had hoped that it would have been rented out to Highland Council for the countryside ranger, but that lease fell through.

“The council didn’t take up the option of leasing it; so we were left sort of high and dry there. When the lease was all put together, then the council just came back and said that they weren’t wanting to lease it.”

Although the trust’s chipper and sawmilling facility at Forsinain, near Forsinard, is not closed, as we believed it was, its continuation depends on the voluntary labour of directors, said Mr Murray.

“We employed Billy MacLean from Borgie for two years. For our first year we had funding for the post, but in the second year we were sustaining his wage, but it was becoming very difficult.

“A lot of it was to do with the fact that we should have had two people employed because of health and safety regulations. One man’s not allowed to work the machine and we were getting in on voluntary time as well, but then Billy’s contract came to an end and he felt that he was wanting to go off and try something else.

“But two of the directors are doing quite a few orders. We had fencing materials and things like that going out. And an order for 200 bird boxes.
“We were supplying the Bettyhill swimming pool with chips and were doing logs for firewood as well, but the swimming pool’s broken down at the moment; so they haven’t had any for the last two months — it’s running on oil [just now] — I think it’s the hopper that’s damaged.”

Mr Murray said that the trust is presently waiting to get more timber in from Borgie Forest to the mill. “But the mill — the asset — is there, and we’ve been having orders — we had a wooden building that we put out as well, we’re putting up sheds and we’ve supplied them with purloins and things like that; so it’s really just doing small orders at the moment.”

For further information, contact Sandy Murray on 01641-571219. Secretary is Anna MacConnell, Bayview, Armadale.