Looking Back – news from the John O'Groat Journal of yesteryear
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Town schemes to provide work
From the Groat of December 1, 1922
The Unemployment Grants Committee in London had agreed to fund 65 per cent of the Huddart Street mill water conduit scheme, members of Wick Town Council were told.
The project was expected to provide work for the unemployed, and men in the town without jobs but not yet registered at the Employment Exchange were urged to do so to make them eligible to apply.
One of the conditions of the grant was that 75 per cent of the workers must be ex-servicemen, after which married men would be given preference.
It was agreed that a weekly wage of £3 be offered.
The councillors also agreed to make another application to the Unemployment Grants Committee in respect of a project to improve the riverside area.
The Wick Riverside Committee had proposed a number of upgrades, including removing a large island in the river close to the Coghill Bridge, extending the bridge, diverting the sewage outfall pipe, deepening the river, and repairing the walks on each side of the river and extending the one on the west as far as the Kinderspiel Bridge.
It was expected the project would employ 100 men for a number of months and would cost around £1500.
Councillors agreed to ask the committee for £1000.
Tourism plan for former old folks' home
From the Groat of December 1, 1972
Forse House in Latheron, the former home for elderly people, had been sold by Caithness County Council for £18,000.
The property had been extensively advertised using Edinburgh agents and three offers had been made, the highest – £500 above the minimum selling price – had come from Shropshire woman Mrs L MacDonald.
In a covering letter, Mrs MacDonald said she wanted to develop Forse House for tourism and mention had been made of a hotel. This caused some concern that selling it knowing this implied a tacit agreement by the council to the plan, but members were reassured that the sale did not commit them "in any way" to approving or supporting the use for which it could be put.
Captain Nigel Gunn suggested delaying the sale until the completion of a tourism strategy for the county but this did not find support.
Lord Thurso commented that when such large buildings were offered for sale, buyers usually wanted to create hotels.
"Who wants to buy a hospital or old folks' home for themselves?" he asked. "Whoever made these offers obviously had tourist development in mind."
Elsewhere, plans to abandon Wick's Hogmanay bonfire had been shelved but the town council had made a call for local youth organisations to pitch in and help.
Council cash crisis puts services at risk
From the Groat of December 5, 1997
A senior council official warned that some services in Caithness could be axed while local authority tax bills would rise by more than the rate of inflation.
The gloomy prediction was made by Caithness area manager Brian Whitelaw after Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar had outlined his spending plans for local government in 1998/99.
With cuts of around £14 million expected in the Highland Council's budget, Mr Whitelaw said some local authority-run services could "cease to exist".
He said the council "had already been cut to the bone and we will be unable to make further reductions without seriously affecting services".
"If we are unable to provide a service to a standard which is acceptable to the public, we may have to consider giving it up rather than running it badly."
Meanwhile, the Highland Council was to shed several managerial jobs in the far north to save money.
A number of area departments in Caithness were to be merged with Sutherland to create a single management for both counties.
It was understood that new managers for merged departments in social work and cultural and leisure services would be based in Wick, with Brora earmarked as the location for the manager of education.
The number of property and architectural services managers across Highland was being cut from five to two.
