Altnabreac station saga highlights issues around rural realities
Holyrood Notebook by Ariane Burgess
It was a relief to hear of the reopening of Altnabreac Station this spring, just in time for the start of the holiday season, and that the last civil case in the long-running saga has now been dismissed.
I’d raised the issue several times with Network Rail and in parliament, having used the stop myself on a visit to the area the first summer after becoming your MSP.
The station in the heart of the Flow Country resumed services in April, bringing relief to local residents and reopening a fantastic route into the Unesco World Heritage Site for walkers and cyclists, whose numbers disembarking at the station had steadily increased during the years prior to Altnabreac’s closure.
The case has highlighted broader issues that many face when moving to rural areas, where long-held dreams can often clash with reality. The rural retirement idyll can quickly crumble when it meets harsh winters, stretched public services or, as in some cases I’m currently working on, unscrupulous landowners who see the opportunity to make money.
The plan that some people have been taken in by is a very simple one – take some land, break it up into smaller units, take scenic pictures, add some nice words about the “strong demand for short-term accommodation” and suggest “fisherman’s huts, cabins, chalets” and sell the smaller units on as development sites via online auctions.
Add some glossy promotion, and a lack of frankness by the seller, and you’ve very profitably sold some challenging agricultural land or wild space as an “ideal investment”, despite it being vanishingly unlikely to receive planning permission for any housing in future.
In some cases, the prospect of development has been even further diminished by terms and conditions that prohibit the seller from building or even selling on the land even if they could get permission.
Council planning departments are doing what they can to inform people and in some cases police and trading standards investigations are taking place. All have been hampered by Scottish Government foot-dragging, a change in the legislation around online sales brought in by the previous Tory UK government last year, and a lack of resources for planning departments. Meanwhile, the auctions and crushed dreams continue.
We face a challenge as a society when balancing the desires of individuals to own (and often profit from) a slice of our scenic landscape, rather than seeing themselves as joining a living, breathing community that needs all its members to play a part to thrive. Combine this with an increasingly under-resourced and stretched public sector, who have a duty to safeguard our environment and infrastructure for the future, and you have a recipe for discord.
The reopening of Altnabreac station is a positive step, but it also serves as a cautionary tale. It underscores the importance of due diligence for those moving to rural areas and highlights the need for vigilance and support from communities and the public sector.
As we celebrate the return to full service of the Far North Line – albeit with the current three-week hiatus for track improvements – let us continue to address the broader challenges faced by rural residents and redouble our efforts to ensure that the dream of rural living can be a sustainable and fulfilling reality for all.
• Ariane Burgess is a Scottish Green MSP for the Highlands and Islands.
