Hopes for new business to take on North Coast 500 tearoom in Caithness
Considerable interest has been shown in taking over a popular tearoom on the North Coast 500 route in Caithness.
Meanwhile, efforts to preserve the adjacent croft museum at Laidhay along with its historical buildings are also moving forwards.
One of the barns, an A-listed building with a rare “cruck roof” remains in a state of disrepair after the roof collapsed under heavy snow a couple of years ago.
Caithness Voluntary Group is acting as caretaker of the Laidhay Preservation Trust, which still owns the tearoom and croft museum, after the management committee wanted to step down and a new committee could not be found.
The tenants running the tearoom also retired at the end of the tourist season last year, leaving an opportunity for another business to step in and take on the premises at Dunbeath.
Alistair Jack, chief officer at Caithness Voluntary Group, said: “We are keen to get a new tenant to take over the business as soon as possible to be able to provide café type food and drinks for tourists and locals alike.
“We have had considerable interest from various people so we are just waiting for interested parties to submit tenders to take over the business, and hopefully it will be open again very soon.”
Interested parties were invited to view the premises earlier this week and tenders must be submitted by May 31.
Mr Jack explained how the group was planning to progress with the croft museum.
He said: “We tried for several months to get local like-minded community organisations to consider taking on the assets at Laidhay but to no avail. Therefore, in an attempt to save this important historical building, we are in the process of forming a new Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) which has an application currently pending with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR).
“The new SCIO has a dedicated board of trustees, some local, but also others from around the country, all considered experts in their field such as conservation architecture, crofting, tourism, heritage buildings etc.
“Once the SCIO is approved, we will then apply to OSCR to have the Laidhay Preservation Trust wound up and all of its assets transferred to the new Lappan & Laidhay Preservation Trust SCIO, and hopefully the future of the Laidhay Croft Museum will be secured for future generations.”
