Arnish Lighthouse

Another posting on the subject of the interconnector. This morning, I grabbed a copy of the Press and Journal and was pleased to read that the interconnector will not now be built until 2017, if at all. It became grimly amusing when I subsequently picked up a copy of the Stornoway Gazette, which was still highlighting a report, which promised 3,500 jobs in the Western Isles out of the renewables industry - provided problems like the interconnector are addressed. The problem will not be addressed in favour of the renewables industry, as the economical case is too weak, in a nutshell.

A decade has been spent by (amongst others) Comhairle nan Eilean Siar trying to get large, shore-based windfarms to these islands. The writing was already on the wall as far back as 2008, when the 180-turbine Barvas Moor windfarm was torpedoed. This was to have been the salvation of the Western Isles economy, with the diaspora flocking home to the 400 jobs at the Arnish Fabrication Yard.

The Eishken windfarm was rubberstamped in a much reduced form, with beads and mirrors being dangled in front of us in the shape of the community benefit - which although fairly substantial, was in no proportion to the profits to be generated by developers and landowners. This too is now dead in the water, as its output requires the interconnector.

I am not going to sit here being accused of wanting to keep these islands back. Far from it. I fully back the Comhairle in its attempts to attract sustainable, long-term and large-scale employment to the Outer Hebrides. Embracing the renewables industry in the way that the Comhairle has done thus far has turned out to be a non-starter. I acknowledge that the geography has proved to be a major stumbling block. But a single focus, rather than taking a diversified approach, did not help either.

This month sees the 70th anniversary of Black May, the height of the Battle of the Atlantic (BOA) during the Second World War. The Royal Navy is commemorating the event with a series of events in London, Liverpool and Derry-Londonderry. More than 30,000 Naval personnel were lost during the BOA, a good many originating from the Western Isles; some 400 from the Isle of Lewis, and most of those served in the Royal Naval Reserve.

Today is also the 68th anniversary of VE-day, when the fighting in Europe ceased towards the end of WW2. The fighting against Japan continued for a little over 3 months, until two atomic bombs convinced the Japanese empire that surrender was the best option.

Once more, our esteemed MSP is busy trying to push Scottish & Southern Energy into committing themselves to building the interconnector. The interconnector is the subsea electricity cable that is supposed to take the electricity, generated by Western Isles renewable energy schemes, to the National Grid. It is pencilled in to run from Gravir (South Lochs) to Dundonnell on Little Loch Broom on the mainland, and on to Beauly. There it will connect with the Beauly to Denny high-voltage powerline into the National Grid.

SSE are reportedly reluctant to invest £700 million in the interconnector, uncertain that this investment will yield a return equal to it or greater. Associated problems are the transmission charges, which tend to increase the further away from the Scottish Central Belt or England you are.

The reason for all this political pressure have become very clear in recent months. This blogger has been disgusted with the appearance of several windfarms around Stornoway. One now defiles the gentle slopes of Meannan, a southern foothill of the Barvas Hills. If the interconnector is never built, this windfarm will remain idle, practically useless. Its output would outstrip local demand and overpower the local grid infrastructure.

It will become a monument to the folly of putting up windturbines before the requisite electricity infrastructure is in place. Should our MSP fail in his bid to get the interconnector built, there will be quite a few people with egg on their faces - himself, the Leader of the Council and many others. The mere fact that the help of senior members of the Scottish Government is being enlisted says enough.

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Mr Kenny Macaskill, is to give the 10th Angus “Ease” Macleod memorial lecture on 25 October 2013 at Gravir. The lecture, entitled “Opportunities of Independence for Island Communities”.

Without prejudging Mr Macaskill’s speech, I want to log a few observations. I have previously disagreed with one of the lecturers; if memory serves, Mr Bill Lawson postulated in 2006 that Lewis had not been very badly affected by the Clearances. Putting forward that opinion in South Lochs of all places grated with me. The extreme south of South Lochs (Eishken) was wholly cleared of permanent residents in the 1820s, resulting in gross overcrowding in parts of Lochs further north; also, the cruel way in which people from this island were selected for “encouraged emigration” by the chamberlain of James Matheson in 1851 puts Mr Lawson’s opinion in a strange light to say the least.

Although I appreciate that Kenny Macaskill has family connections to South Lochs, I find it equally grating to have a Minister of the current Scottish Government lecturing in South Lochs on opportunities for island communities under independence. For the last 10 years, the residents of the Pairc Estate have been frustrated in their efforts to mount a community buy-out of the land. It is my opinion that the Scottish Government has done very little to expedite the process in favour of the residents, particularly as the landowner has deployed each and every trick in the book to delay the process, and divide the community. Legislative powers should have been created or invoked to counter these methods. It is even worse now that the MSP for the islands is a junior minister in the Scottish Government.

What puts a wry slant on it for me is the recent idea that Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles could break away from an independent Scotland to become a crown dependency, like the Isle of Man. A poll, however, did demonstrate that the idea only carried the support of about 10% of all islanders involved.

Just a commentary after the event on the recent saga surrounding the axing of flights in and out of Benbecula.

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar decided to axe flights between Benbecula and Barra, saving £148,000. This has had certain consequences, and in my opinion not all of them were foreseen by our local authority. Although the flights were poorly subscribed, they fulfilled a lifeline function. Transporting urgent medical supplies, and patients back and forth to the Uist & Barra hospital is but one that came to mind. Yes, there is the ferry from Eriskay to Barra, but I can’t imagine that many recently discharged patients from the U&B relish the prospect of a potentially bumpy 40 minutes on the high seas.

However, I really do wonder if CNES foresaw the logistical consequences - I doubt it. Withdrawing the Barra flights from Benbecula also resulted in a reduction in flights from Benbecula to Stornoway (to just 3 days a week) as well as in flights from Stornoway to Inverness and Edinburgh. I found it wryly comical when our MSP started to squawk at the prospect of his Friday flight from Edinburgh being axed so he couldn’t go home for the weekend. Cutting the Benbecula - Stornoway flights means that consultants coming from Stornoway can only do so on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, unless they are prepared to drive 75 miles (in total) and sit on a ferry for a whole hour to get themselves to the U&B in Balivanich, Benbecula. And do the process in reverse at the end of the day.

I am not convinced that CNES consulted with Loganair prior to implementing the decision to cut the flights. Reading the media reports at the time, everybody seems to have been caught out by the consequences. Another consequence is the loss of a subsidy from the Scottish Government for this lifeline service.

Cutting costs, which CNES has had to do to the tune of £6m, is a necessary evil in this time of economic stagnation. But cutting costs without due regard for the consequences is not good local government.

The British government have announced that HS2 will produce tens of thousands of jobs in the UK economy. On their Number10gov twitter account, the tweet reads: #HS2 is a ‘catalyst that will help secure economic prosperity & support tens of thousands of jobs’ says PM http://ow.ly/hboog

HS2 is also the postal code for rural Lewis, an open goal in this context.

Well, it’s good to finally see some recognition of the contribution made by the men and women of the rural parts of this island. Whilst not negating the similarly worthy contributions from the folk of Stornoway (HS1), it is particularly rewarding, after so many years, decades and centuries of neglect from Westminster, wilful or otherwise.

We can now look forward to the construction of some proper infrastructure, with HS2 being the high speed rail link, running from Butt of Lewis station in the grounds of the lighthouse down the west coast machair, or parallel to the A857, to Barvas Junction, where a low-speed spur runs over the moors to Stornoway. HS2 continues southwest to Carloway, where a subsea tunnel will take the line to Miavaig and Timsgarry Central. After rounding the bay, the line is expected to pass through Mangersta Outer, Islivig and Brenish. Another tunnel will take the trains under the outflows of Lochs Hamnaway and Tealasbhagh to Huisinish, from where HS2 will run down the fifteen miles to Tarbert Central.

HS1 meanwhile will also start at the Butt of Lewis, and speed south along the east coast of the island to North Tolsta. Hugging the line of the main road into town, the line will cross the Cockle Ebb from Tong to Steinish, and enter the town of Stornoway along the line of the Sandwick Canal. Stornoway Central will be located on the seafront, outside the ferry terminal. In order to mitigate the inclines that are met upon leaving Stornoway in a southerly direction, the line will retrace its course as far as Tong, then veer off to the west and south, gradually gaining height through Laxdale. HS1 will then run fairly straight across the moors towards North Lochs and South Lochs, crossing Lochs Leurbost and Erisort by bridge. Finally issuing along the shores of Loch Seaforth, the line will then make for the Harris Hills. The Clisham range will be tunnelled under, meeting the HS2 at Ardhasaig Junction before making for Tarbert Central.

Ach well, we can but dream…

Best wishes for a prosperous and healthy 2013

Where the vagrant prince
once refuge sought -
he was declined
yet not betrayed

The old farmhouse
on the peninsula
just off the moorlands
overlooking the town

Were it to return
it would be suspended
many feet
in the air

The tranquil loch
laps the shore
by the side of the road
under the monument

A path runs on its banks
to a remote
yet beautiful
quiet inlet

The lighthouse beyond,
at the peninsula’s end,
signalling the entrance to
the harbour bay

Its light never reached
to where many were once lost
although but a mile away
at the reefs of the Beasts

Heavy industry thunders
shrieks and grinds
cutting and welding
for oil, wind and wave

A revolving door
closed open shut
not reliable for
the island’s future

Not for that
will the diaspora return
Not for a phantasmagora
dreamt up in a distant room

The island remains
Its people come and go
Twice a day, and at night
past Arnish Point

The latest twist in the tortuous proceedings of the Pairc buy-out has occurred. The Court of Session in Edinburgh has ruled that the community buy-out plans do NOT, as alleged by landowner Barry Lomas, infringe the landowner’s human rights. The next step in this seemingly endless wrangle will be a ruling by a sheriff at Stornoway Sheriff Court whether the ballot by the community in South Lochs on the proposed buy-out was flawed, or not. This is expected to happen in January.

The buy-out relates to unoccupied common land, away from the villages on the Pairc peninsula. In itself, this is not worth a lot, but a proposed windfarm could propel its value (currently unknown) into the millions of pounds.

A vote to investigate the possibility of mounting a community buy-out of the Pairc estate was taken in November 2004. A ballot in favour of mounting a hostile buy-out bid was taken in December 2009, making it the first instance of a hostile buy-out under the right-to-buy legislation, enacted in 2003.

In the 16 years that I have taken a more than passive interest in community land buy-outs, starting with the Isle of Eigg in 1996/7, I have never seen such a ludicrous situation as what has arisen in South Uist in recent times.

I refer to the article on Hebrides News for details.

The purpose of this blogpost is to question the use (and I have difficulty not prefixing “use” with the letters M, I and S) of the staggering amount of two hundred thousand pounds in legal fees to resolve a dispute between Stòras and a crofting tenant.

Rather than come to a private, amicable settlement, things had to go to court. That happens, also in Lewis, where I am based. Even close relatives take each other to court over land issues, and senior law practitioners get involved in those too. However, Stòras is a landowner, who had a dispute with one of its tenants.

Nonetheless, I question the use of this vast sum of money in legal fees, in spite of a local petition (which went round the estate in 2010) to drop the action.

This sordid episode marks a low point in the modern history of community buy-outs, in my opinion.

The Facebook page of the West Harris Trust highlighted an article in the Daily Telegraph of 27 November 2012, on the plight of crofters, threatened with a second clearance. Having read the article, I formulated the following reply.

Interesting debate, indeed. In my opinion, it boils down to what to do about the ’second home’ use of crofts, leaving them unused for much of the year. On balance, I would come out with the Crofters Commission, knowing the history of the crofting movement to a certain extent. The people who went to jail in the 1880s did so to ensure that they and their descendants could work the land, without fear of summary eviction. Particularly in Melness, not far from Strathnaver where hundreds were cruelly driven off their lands in the 1810s, having this right misused rankles.

I also posted this comment on the Wall of the The West Harris Trust, where I happen to know plenty of second home lie empty a lot of the year, I would call for a debate to determine which, of the 21st century uses of a croft, is appropriate. Is using only the improvement (house) appropriate or sufficient? People who own a croft, like the person in the Telegraph article, very likely do not realise the responsibilities they take on. It’s not just a house in a pretty area. It’s a way of life.

What I think is a more serious abuse of the crofting system is feuing off of parcels of land from a croft. The Taynuilt incident (where someone splintered his croft into a dozen feus for house building) was a very bad case of misuse of croftland. In Lewis, where I am based, I have seen many such instances, which can turn a crofting township into a housing estate. Feuing off, in my humble opinion, should be banned.