A CAMPAIGN to open up ownership of a Scottish island to the local community has been backed by a senior Scottish Government minister.
Michael Russell, the Education Secretary, supports attempts to encourage residents of Bute to join the Mount Stuart Trust, the company that owns and manages most of the island.
Mr Russell, who is also MSP for Argyll and Bute, said: "I have had a very productive discussion with the trust in recent days. I think their work is very important to the island. It seems to me, however, that there would be great benefit to be had from a wider membership including those who live on, or work closely with, the island.
"I would support local people seeking and gaining membership and my own application is simply designed to draw attention to the issue."
The trust is controlled by five members of the Marquess of Bute's family, an accountant and a lawyer.
Campaign group Land Action Scotland wants residents to join the trust to give people a say in how their community is run.
Group founder Andy Wightman, a land rights campaigner, said: "This is an extremely welcome intervention from Michael Russell, and it sends a clear message to the owners of Bute: Scottish public opinion is against the old model of aristocratic land ownership and entitlement."
Connie Lovel, chief executive of the Mount Stuart Trust, said all applications will be considered. In a statement she added: "The land action group led by Andy Wightman has sought to characterise the trust as some sort of remote body which does not act in the interests of the island and its residents.
"This is misleading and disingenuous. The entire operational management team of the trust works day in day out on Bute."
Most applications so far have been from outside the island.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article