Nonhebel Park – Tobermory

After many years in the planning, it’s hard to believe that Nonhebel Park (Tobermory Light Industrial Park) has been open for just over two months now, with the first tenants accepting keys for business units and lock up units on the 1st March. The name Nonhebel Park was chosen to commemorate local businessman Andrew Nonhebel who first approached the trust regarding the lack of storage and small business premises in North Mull. An oak tree has been planted within the grounds of the park by Andrew’s family – ‘great oaks from little acorns grow’.

We had hoped to have held an official opening of the park during March, but any such plans are currently on hold due to the current restrictions in place due to Covid-19. No-one could have predicted the impact of the virus on local businesses and our island communities. Whilst we do have vacant units and facilities at the park that we’d like to fill, our focus has been to regularly communicate with our existing tenants to ensure that they are aware of the assistance and support available to them at this unsettling time.

Enquiries regarding premises or storage can be directed to mgreig@mict.co.uk Tel: 01680 812910.

Investment Opportunity

An Opportunity to Invest in the Sustainable Future of Mull

We are offering the opportunity to directly support a
community development which will facilitate economic growth for our community.

Tobermory Light Industrial Park was first conceived when MICT was approached in 2007 by a local businessman who needed more storage for his business. He quickly gathered the details of 12 other individuals and
businesses who required more storage or dedicated small business premises.

MICT purchased the 0.8-hectare site near Tobermory in March 2016 and has secured funding for phase 1 development of the site. However, as demand for small business premises has increased, we are already progressing with phase 2 to provide a further four 60m2 business units at a cost of £180,000. We have exhausted grant funding sources for this type of development to progress phase 1. Before finalising loan finance from a
commercial lender, we would like to offer individuals and businesses the opportunity to make a long term investment in phase 2, thereby retaining the profit with those living on the island or with strong links to it. Of
course, we would also welcome philanthropic donations or offers of interest free loans.

With a minimum long term investment of £1000, you will be supporting a development which will:
• help retain young people on the island and reverse the ageing population
• increase business networking by clustering – leading to greater economic opportunities
• create local employment during the construction phase
• create new employment opportunities in a remote rural area
• create the opportunity for business start-up or expansion
• support the long-term sustainability of indigenous businesses
• enable bulk purchasing through provision of secure storage
• provide storage and leisure opportunities for community use
In return, you will receive a competitive interest rate for the duration of your investment and the knowledge that you are supporting a local social enterprise and charity to progress this development for the benefit of new and expanding Mull-based businesses and our communities.

Please get in touch to find out more:

Mairi Greig
Tel: 01680 812 918
Email: mgreig@mict.co.uk

Moray Finch
Tel: 01680 812 905
Email: mfinch@mict.co.uk

New food waste vacancy

Ulva Ferry Housing Funding Update

MICT are delighted to receive a grant of £18,000 from the Prince’s Countryside Fund in their most recent round of Rural Four funding, supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.  Rural Four aims to support communities in the British countryside cope with isolation and its related issues, with a focus on connecting residents and encouraging the development of community hubs.

The grant for Mull and Iona Community Trust will build on an existing project to part fund a Housing Project Officer, overseeing the development of four new houses for long term affordable rent in Ulva Ferry, on the Isle of Mull. MICT aims to work with the local community to ensure that key decisions at all stages of the project are made by community members, from design through to allocation.

Mull and Iona Community Trust General Manager, Moray Finch, commented, “We are delighted to receive this grant from The Prince’s Countryside Fund, which will enable our Housing Project Officer to take forward plans to deliver four houses for long-term affordable rent at Ulva Ferry on the rural west coast of the Isle of Mull”. 

Community member Josh Liddle, added, “Four houses might not seem much, but in our small community these much-needed new homes will ensure there are more pupils in our primary school, more working age adults to boost local employment and a stronger community overall.  This support from The Prince’s Countryside Fund will ensure we can make our plans a reality.”

The Prince’s Countryside Fund is open for grant applications until February 21^st 2019. Grants of up to £25,000 are available to support community shop and pub projects in rural areas, or grants of up to £50,000 are available for projects that improve the prospects of viability for family farm businesses or support building resilience in rural areas.

http://www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk/who-we-are/latest-news/post/157-january-boost-of-a240k-for-countryside-communities

The Prince’s Countryside Fund was established by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2010 and aims to enhance the prospects of family farm businesses and the quality of rural life. We believe that the British countryside is our most valuable natural asset and its contribution to our everyday life cannot be underestimated.

Click here for more information on the Ulva Ferry Housing Project Phase 2.

Green Light for Second Affordable Housing Project at Ulva Ferry

Green Light for Second Affordable Housing Project at Ulva Ferry

Mull and Iona Community Trust, working with Ulva School Community Association, has secured a grant of £156,865.51 from the Scottish Land Fund to realise a second affordable housing project at Ulva Ferry on the Isle of Mull.

MICT and USCA successfully delivered two affordable houses at Ulva Ferry in 2017, increasing the number of children in the area by 40% and working age adults by 10%, thus strengthening Ulva Primary School’s roll, and the overall sustainability of the community.  Despite this success, there is a continued need for affordable long-term rental housing in this remote area of Mull, which is essential for the continued sustainability of the community.  The Scottish Land Fund award will cover the majority of the cost of the purchase of a plot at Ulva Ferry, along with half of the staffing costs to appoint a project officer.

This project will deliver 4 more houses across two sites at Ulva Ferry, which will be offered as secure, long-term let, via an allocation process, and at an affordable rent.  Extensive feasibility work carried out over the winter months confirmed that there was a particular shortage of housing for working age couples and families, and local businesses were struggling to recruit and retain staff as a direct result.

USCA, and the wider Ulva Ferry community, will be at the heart of the project as it develops – having the opportunity to be involved in the whole decision process from the design of the houses to the allocation policy.  Funding towards the build costs will be sought from grant sources including the Rural Housing Fund, set up by the Scottish Government in 2016 to increase the supply of affordable housing of all tenures in rural Scotland.

MICT General Manager, Moray Finch, commented, ‘we are delighted to receive this grant from the Scottish Land Fund, which will enable us to deliver a second housing project for Ulva Ferry.  In such rural areas provision of affordable housing is key to securing wider social and economic benefits for the community as a whole’. 

USCA Convenor, Josh Liddle, added, ‘affordable housing remains the top priority at Ulva Ferry, and this project will ensure there will be more pupils in the school, more working age adults to boost local businesses and a stronger community overall – we can’t wait to start building again!’.

For more information, please contact Helen MacDonald, Housing Project Officer:

 

hmacdonald@mict.co.uk

01680 812 900

 

NOTE TO EDITORS

The Scottish Land Fund reopened to applications in April 2016. The programme is funded by the Scottish Government and delivered in partnership by the Big Lottery Fund and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, both of which have extensive experience of helping communities to acquire and develop their assets for over a decade.   The SLF Committee was appointed following the normal procedures for public appointments.

The BIG Lottery Fund distributes lottery funding to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. It also uses its expertise in grant-giving to distribute non-Lottery funding. Full details of the BIG Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website:

http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

BIG Lottery Fund Public Enquiries Line call: 0300 123 7110.

Mull and Iona Community Trust was formed in 1997 and is one of more than 200 Development Trusts across Scotland. MICT is involved in a wide variety of services and projects, ranging from a dementia singing group to a £1million hydro electric scheme.

Ulva School Community Association was formed in 2011 to give Ulva Ferry residents a say in the future plans for the area.  The Association grew out of the successful fight to save the local primary school from closure.  The USCA Committee now work with MICT to jointly deliver local development projects including community transport, a pontoon and shore facilities, and affordable housing.

5 Reasons to Shop in Island Castaways Charity Shops

If you have never experienced the delights of charity shop browsing, now is a great time to have a browse. Our three shops on the island are full of goodies from fantastic fashions to vintage treasures.

1. Great for the Environment

Why waste valuable resources when you can do your bit for the environment by reusing materials. We saved 42 tonnes of goods from going to landfill through charity shop sales last year.

2. Cheap and Cheerful

We are lucky to have a lot of generous donors on the island so we always have lots of good quality clothes at a fraction of clothing shop prices. It’s a great way to change your wardrobe at a price that won’t break the bank. We always have a great range of bric a brac, electrical goods, furniture and household items too!

3. Be Original

High street shops offer similar goods in every town across the country. Charity shops offer an eclectic mix of styles fashions and colours that allow the shopper an opportunity to express their own style. We also have lots of high fashion items.

4. Raise Awareness and Your Island

MESS (Mull and Iona Environmentally Sensitive Solutions) is a community initiative that provides local solutions to the waste and environmental issues that affect our communities, and brings economic as well as environmental benefits to Mull and Iona.

We aim to reduce, reuse, recycle as much as possible on the islands of Mull and Iona. Every year customers, donors and volunteers at Island Castaways help promote recycling on the islands and help provide thousands of pounds to community groups.

5. Range of Goods

It’s always worth popping in to see if we have what you are looking for in our shops. After quality checks, we aim to display a huge range of donated items, from long lost phone chargers to that piece of china that makes up grannies favourite set. If you don’t see it on the shelves just ask- we can check our storeroom or get in touch when we get one in.

The list of benefits is endless... but we hope this has spurred you on to try out a guilt-free shopping trip whilst supporting our recycling project, looking unique and feeling fab about it!

Craignure

Bunessan

Tobermory

Click here to Learn More

Ulva Ferry Pontoon & Shore Facilities

Ulva Ferry Pontoon and Shore Facilities Update

With the exceptional May and June weather, visiting boat numbers to the Ulva Ferry pontoon have increased during this period. Feedback from yachtsmen and others has been very positive, the wonderful location and the fantastic restaurants nearby – the Boathouse Ulva and Ballygown. Some visitors hire Ulva Ferry community transport – usually the electric car, to explore the wider area and visit local businesses. It is, however, clear from survey comments from boat crews that pontoon shore facilities are required to attract further boats to the area, provide wider economic benefits and sustain the pontoon.

The feasibility study into acquiring a site to develop a shore facilities building and amenities through a Scottish Land Fund application process has continued over the past year with widespread community consultation, surveys and site appraisals.

Research undertaken by business consultants Community Enterprise have shown wide support for the project within the local community, with proposed facilities aimed to be beneficial to the local residents – as well as visitors to the area, securing and increasing jobs and provide economic benefit locally.

Masterplanning work has been undertaken by local architects Thorne Wyness, and as a result of extensive appraisals of 4 different sites, working with USCA, the local community group, and the landowners, the site nearest to the pontoon head has been identified as the most suitable to accommodate the shore facilities and to complement existing commercial activities and future growth of the area.

Work continues to submit the stage 2 application of the Scottish Land Fund in August, and identify capital funding for development.

There will be an open meeting at Ulva School on Thursday 12th July 7.30pm to discuss the project further to which all are welcome.

If you would like to find out more about the Ulva Ferry Pontoon Shore Facilities project, please contact Cally Fleming:

cfleming@mict.co.uk

01680 812 900 or 07795177571

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North Mull Ranger Service Summer Update

News from the North

It has been a pretty busy month getting out and about around the island, the good weather has helped.

I had a session with George Watson’s School  from Edinburgh who were working towards their John Muir Award. We did a bit of path clearance so that geocaches could be accessed a bit easier.

A big pleasure and great fun was having Tobermory Primary School’s P1 and 2 in Aros Park, we played lots of running around games, built hedgehog houses and to end they all got involved in putting up small tents and then eating their hotdogs inside.

One very pleasant Thursday evening I accompanied the Scouts to Langamull Bay to do a beach clean and have a BBQ. Thank you for inviting me. Luckily Langamull had very little rubbish so less to carry back to the cars.

After being created locally the directional signage has now gone in on the Lighthouse Path, Tobermory and benches and picnic tables are starting to appear along the way.

Our events programme and what we have been up to can be followed  on our blog page: www.mullionarangerservice.com and we regularly post to Facebook at Mull and Iona Ranger

Jan Dunlop,

Countryside Ranger Manager,

 

Tel: 01680300640 or Mob: 07765898600. jan.dunlop@forestry.gsi.gov.uk;

News from Cian Burke-Brown, our Seasonal Ranger

As the sunshine continued throughout the island, the good weather also contributed towards some cracking events! We put on a real mix this month from boat trips with basking sharks to a less fruitful Fishnish walk. I took a group out on a walk through Fishnish hoping to find crossbills and wood warblers. We found neither but did get a close look at redpoll and a very friendly chaffinch.

The group stayed in good spirits, despite the lack of species, we instead turned our attention to the invertebrate life along the path and were graced with a variety of both damsel and dragon flies. I also joined Emily on the joint event with the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust. It was an amazing evening filled with lots of marine life, seabird surveys and a gorgeous sunset, what more could you want?

We also helped out at Treshnish’s farm open day. An interesting event learning all about the farm and the wildflowers it holds within. A lot of this was new to me, learning about the hybridising nature of orchid species. There were only a couple of buzzards and a flock of linnet on the walk, many of the other birds may have been put off by the size of our group.

Once we sat down for our delicious picnic, prepared by the wonderful Janette of Ballygown, we spotted a few harbour porpoise off the coast so set up the scope for everyone to have a look. A lovely end to a truly enjoyable day.

 

For further more information on the Mull and Iona Ranger Service visit mullionarangerservice.com.

Restoration of Walled Garden at Aros Park

On Sunday May 20th Mull and Iona Community Trust (MICT) held an ideas gathering event for the Walled Garden in Aros Park. About 40 people came out to explore the garden and to talk about their memories or experiences of being in the garden over many years.

For some, the garden has always been abandoned, and yet it still forms part of their regular walk in the park. For others, they could remember playing in the garden when they were young, and some could remember details about how it once looked and for others, they simply didn’t know it was there at all.

Part of the exercise was to find out if visitors to the park wanted the walled garden restored, and thankfully all those who attended said that they would. Another aim for the afternoon was to find out ideas about what the garden could become once it is restored.

Ideas came from all sides, and all were very good. Whether some of them would ever be possible is questionable, but all the ideas were welcome, and these will be taken forward to the next community consultation meetings that will take place soon.

The garden is pretty big, 117metres long by 35metres wide, so it is quite a space. There are many well established trees in it, plus the foundations of buildings, and the original arched entrances. It’s neither flat nor rectangular so there could well be challenges ahead. From the ideas and comments from the event, most people would like to see a combination of spaces and functions being made available, i.e. not just a formal garden, or allotments, but a combination of two or three different functions. Whether this opinion changes from the subsequent consultation meetings remains to be seen, but this has been a tremendous start.

 

On Thursday 5^th July there will be a further consultation session, this time drop in meetings to be held in the afternoon and evening at the Scout Hall in Tobermory. These sessions will be to capture new ideas, to develop further ideas from the last meeting and to start to form a Steering Group. There will be some draft designs on show, these are guides at best and nothing has yet been decided.

Background

When the Aros House Estate was sold in the late 1950’s to Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), the walled garden was not included in the sale. Since then, the garden has been left almost untouched. In 2017 the owner approached FCS to sell the garden. FCS purchased it, and then approached Mull and Iona Community Trust (MICT) enquiring as to whether the community would be interested in purchasing it for restoration in whatever form they decide, within reason.

Historical Research

Research has been ongoing to find what the garden looked like before it was abandoned. This was more difficult than first expected, and even now the earliest record that has been found is from 1946. Searches of the local museum found nothing about the garden, although there was plenty of information on the “big house”. 

Contact was established with a direct descendant, who has been very helpful, and through her, we now have a small water colour painting of a corner of the garden, and a plan made from memory of the garden from around the 1950’s. Shortly after the event a photo from 1946 was loaned to the project. This was taken from some height above the garden, but still has sufficient detail to show large areas of the garden and how it was laid out. 

Ideas from the Event

1. As a Garden

• Restored to being a working garden as it was before
• If restored to being a formal garden it could be used as a wedding venue
• Formal garden with a performance space
• Feature garden for specimen plants e.g. Rhododendrons and Azaleas
• Part informal (low maintenance) garden and part allotments. Need to be aware of ongoing maintenance of the garden
• Informal garden with informal (not straight) paths running through it. (Prairie like)
• Sensory garden for a charity e.g. Mairi Curie daffodil garden
• Wellness and mindfulness garden
• Forest burials or memorial garden/wall. A memory garden with pictures/memories of deceased loved ones with some history of the person and where they lived on the island.
• Install a map of Mull where people could populate it with memories of people from specific areas of the island
• Pet Cemetery
• Tree house and platform for children & rope swing
• Picnic benches
• Café
• Create a maze (from 2 separate visitors)
• Men’s Sheds – where volunteers could look after the garden in exchange for a shed where they could meet

2. As a Producer's Garden (Growing Space)

• Produce plots for what would effectively be market gardens where each plot tenant would then have a produce stall where the community could purchase what has been grown
• Plots for a community herb garden where community members could grow herbs for the benefit of the whole community. (submitted by three separate people)
• If the garden is restored as allotments then a community greenhouse will be needed
• Communal education garden for schools and groups
• Herb & produce garden run as a co-operative – work for a share of the output, rather than individual allotments
• Garden divided into plots for community groups, schools, and local businesses e.g. B&B’s. Each group would be responsible for their own patch. Would grow produce for their group or businesses, similar to the hotel gardens on Iona.
• Apple orchard with annual cider festival
• Community orchard, similar to what has been created at Dervaig