Urgent representations need to be made to members of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government to stop the sale of Kinloch Castle and its grounds to an England based multimillionaire, Jeremy Hosking. The government body, NatureScot, who own most of Rum and manage it as a National Nature Reserve, aim to sell the castle to Mr Hosking on Monday 31 Oct. The sale, as today’s letter in the Herald shows, is opposed by Rum’s local community.
It is essential that representations by email or social media are made directly to Lorna Slater MSP, the Minister responsible for NatureScot, MinisterGSCEB@gov.scot and to all other MSPs who care about land reform and the future of local communities. This sale needs to be stopped.
Details of the proposed sale first emerged in a press release by NatureScot last June (see here). This followed secret negotiations carried out by Nature Scot with the prospective landowner in which the local community and wider interests were kept in the dark. This was a complete breach of Scottish Government policy, as defined by the government’s own Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement (LRRS), first produced in 2017 and updated in Sept 2022, as well as the protocols for community engagement over prospective land sales as produced by the Scottish Land Commission.
Since my opinion piece in the Herald, it appears that the prospective owner visited the island in July and held discussions with local community representatives for just one hour. Today’s letter from the Isle of Rum Community Trust makes clear that this July discussion and subsequent meetings with Nature Scot and the owner’s representative have been completely unsatisfactory. As yet no discussions have taken place with the wider community, as represented by the thousands of people who visit Rum every year to enjoy nature, Kinloch village and the walking and climbing opportunities along the coast and in the hills.
In June the SNP president, Michael Russell, a former MSP and Scottish Government Environment Minister, severely criticised NatureScot for its actions and said that no sale should be progressed until legally binding agreements are in place to protect the local community interests (see here). NatureScot has failed to respond to those criticisms.
The current minister, Lorna Slater MSP, is also responsible for Scotland’s national park system, the development of which is currently out for public consultation. NatureScot has set a closing date of 30th November for responses (see here). Rum and the adjacent islands have long been recognised as a potential “Small Isles National Park”, incorporating both the land and seas in this part of the Inner Hebrides. Rum would have a key part to play in such a national park, with Kinloch village and its central core, Kinloch Castle and grounds, being the only feasible area for development of the visitor infrastructure and management facilities that such a national park would require.
It would be incredible if in 2022 the Scottish Government were to ignore all the requirements of its own land reform policies, as expressed in the Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement and associated protocols, by approving this sale of Kinloch Castle and grounds. Even worse, they would be compromising the future opportunities that Rum might have through national park status. Scottish land reform would have become a joke in the hands of Lorna Slater, a Green Party MSP and the Government Minister who is ultimately responsible for this situation on Rum.
Please write to Ms Slater MinisterGSCEB@gov.scot and other MSPs before 31 Oct to stop this sale and to ask the minister to visit Rum as soon as possible. She needs to find out exactly why the local community and others are despairing of the actions of NatureScot and to explore an alternative vision for the future based on community aspirations and not the private desires of a multimillionaire based in England.
Oh well no sale,let it crumble even more.
Community buyout would be ehm interesting.
Bring the whole thing down and give the land to the community. What that castle represents is nothing to do with community.
{Non-Rum resident working in another successful community}
Absolutel agree Ginger. The whole building, in which I have stayed, is just a monument to the folly of indulging private wealth. It would be stupidly expensive to renovate and make weatherproof with the ridiculous amount of valleys in the complex roof. Dismantle it stone by stone, and if too expensive to dump it back where it came from, use it as roadstone, or dump it in the Minch. And then how about letting a few wolves loose to look after the deer. Except the island is probably not big enough??
A little balance is needed here. Mr Hosking’s proposal is to place Kinloch Castle into a charitable trust which will restore and care for it, continuing after his death. Although he would not claim to be a local, his Scottish home is at Arisaig and has views to Rum. He has a brilliant track record for heritage works. The proposed transfer includes a binding duty to spend £8.5m on restoration of the Category-A listed building, making up for decades of neglect.
The terms of the offer include a request that the castle is given a margin of privacy to aid its future, by altering one of two routes used by vehicles, which passes over the forecourt immediately in front of the front door. It is suggested that heavy traffic could use a new route to the west; and the existing route for light traffic, which follows the shore line 120 metres east of the castle, could be improved. The sellers, NatureScot, are looking at this with the island community. NatureScot owns virtually the whole island (a nature reserve), so needs good access as much as any resident, but it also wants to give the Castle Trust every chance of a successful commercial future.
The other point that needs correction is that the buyer is not making a play for the island’s power supply. Kinloch Castle was the first house in Scotland built with electric lighting. All that is suggested is that the old powerhouse, built to supply the castle, is retained in the same ownership for heritage reasons.
Three-way negotiations continue to seek a happy compromise. The community is fully represented.
Hugh Garratt – surveyor of historic buildings advising Mr Hosking.
All sounds very reasonable until you realise that this is a virtually uninhabited remote island with no public vehicle access so use of the term “heavy traffic” is intended to paint a mental picture quite removed from the reality. The idea that there could be sufficient traffic on Rum to significantly affect residents of the property is not credible.
The general principle is that if you buy a property on a road you are accepting the existing and potential level of traffic on that road and if you don’t like it you are free to live somewhere else. But this isn’t about traffic rather the notion that the rich are entitled to “privacy” which means in this context keeping the proles out of their sight.
Mr Garratt is right in that the level of investment to fix the castle will not and probably should not come from the public purse as there are more deserving cases. Taking the stone to Arran and soil to Ayrshire from whence they came or chucking it in the Minch are not really solutions. If we flattened every structure built by Victorian industrialists with a dodgy past, we wouldn’t have much left. Incidentally, I always through that the monks in Fort Augustus had the first electric lights from their own hydro scheme.
The public sector has not done a great job for Rum over the years and maybe someone else should be allowed to try. However, the relatively recently established Rum community (and there will be mixed views) do also deserve certainty on necessary access to assets. Neighbouring Eigg shows what can be done.
Mr Hosking is certainly planning to be busy in Rum and for good or ill has invested just across the Sound in Arisaig and even has his own train to get there, according to local press reports! Supporting a new public ferry for the Small Isles might be a useful contribution he might like to consider? If this goes ahead, he will need one to get all his materials to Rum.
Arisaig House: Inside the stunning Highland home sold to multi- millionaire financier.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands-islands/4895989/…
11/10/2022 · Multi-millionaire financier Jeremy Hosking is the new owner of the property. Mr Hosking has an extensive background in investment in private equity.
Row rumbles on over millionaire’s train run along Harry Potter line.
https://www.obantimes.co.uk/2021/03/18/row-rumbles-on-over…
18/03/2021 · Row rumbles on over millionaire’s train run along Harry Potter line – The Oban Times. The special train belonging to Jeremy Hosking pulls into Fort William …
The issue of a right of way for all traffic was sorted years ago at Amhuinnsuidhe Castle on Harris. The road remained open and the owner told to live with it. Seemed fine there, why not here?
I spotted the front page of the latest edition of the weekly Lochaber and Oban Times earlier today. A leading article concerns itself with detail about this proposal and helps raise the profile of the growing number of individuals who are expressing so many reservations. (The text extends to a second page. …you may need to subscribe to read all of it:)
https://www.obantimes.co.uk/2022/10/27/calls-grow-to-halt-sale-of-crumbling-rum-castle/ ) .
This update report appears on BBC Scotland webpage today :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-63500160
While this “place on hold” instruction is a very satisfactory interim measure there is a distinct feeling of ” Déjà vu” The Island’s future has involved this debate countless times before. Once again the dust of recent speculations has a chance to settle. The Isle of Rum community must try to keep this matter high in the minds of those who looked for roles, entrusted with finding a permanent way out of this decades long fiscal impasse.
The community are no interested in a solution, only milking any outcome,be SNH or a new owner.
I would conjecture that this opinion from S is very , very, far from the truth. Plans and agreements made by ” outsiders” that affect the future condition of the Castle have long been central to the Isle of Rum community’s very survival. Th community’s Hydro power source is tied in with these ideas. Should a vast workforce of contractors suddenly descend on the island, on long term contracts to restore integrity to this listed building, that will take months or even years to complete, the community must be fully consulted. When this has happened before under SNH management Rum residents who have chosen to lead their lives there and work there found their gentle way of life had become sidelined , effectively they were silenced…outnumbered. Further fragmentation of the integrity of the public duty for conservation on Rum, by selling off freehold to any part of it..will never work.
Elsewhere in the real world, we wake up to the sun rising in the east and setting in the West.
You would near think this was a new issue, it is not,it has been rumbling on for years and even decades.
Has the situation on Rum improved to any degree in that time?
It is a kin To you living in a1960 house without ever doing anything to it and I do not believe that is the case. Did you consult your neighbours before getting work done on your property?
A real solution has been presented not for the first time and yet a again sense of “Nah you cannot do that” is presented by those that have no real interest let alone live and add to the community in question.
Hey ho
The no way never team have won.
Rum continues to thrive, yay!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-65014314