​Islanders launch bid to raise millions to buyout tiny island

Residents on the Isle of Mull have launched a worldwide appeal in a bid to buy the tiny neighbouring island of Ulva.

The appeal was launched after Scottish Government ministers blocked the sale – under community right to buy legislation – of the tiny Hebridean island which could fetch as much as £5m.

The community buyout was announced over the summer after it emerged that its laird, Jamie Howard, whose family has owned Ulva for 70 years, was about to put it on the market for offers over £4.25m.

That sale has now been halted using land reform legislation.

North West Mull Community Woodland Company, which has already taken large areas into shared ownership, plans to integrate Ulva into a wider regeneration strategy across north western Mull, where it has already set up nine new woodland crofts.

The Ulva bid is backed by the national-lottery Scottish Land Fund, which has £10m a year to spend and has created a surge in interest in community buyouts.

Linsay Chalmers, of representative group Community Land Scotland, said there were about 180 bids either under way or being explored, but most were small.

Rebecca Munro, whose husband Rhuri grew up on the island, where they are raising their two children, said they hoped to see Ulva thrive again.

“It’s just such a lovely place to bring up children. We have such an excellent primary school at Ulva Ferry and the children have a freedom that they wouldn’t get elsewhere,” she said.

“The idea that we could bring more people back and support the school at the same time would be lovely. When Rhuri was growing up they had Burns suppers and Christmas parties there in the church, and it would be nice to get that heart back into the place.

“When you walk around and you see the ruins and the houses still there but empty, you get a sense of what it could be like again. Just to get people and families and young people back in the empty houses would make such a difference.”