The community purchase of the Lochinver Glebe from the Church of Scotland went ahead at the end of March 2021. Since then, we have been progressing towards affordable housing development on the site. A full planning application has been submitted, in November 2023, for a first phase of ten housing units in two clusters along Canisp Road from Lochinver main street. This is part of detailed design work being carried out by a design team led by Oberlanders Architects, with Communities Housing Trust acting as our agent. 

The original land purchase was mainly funded by the Scottish Land Fund, along with some of our own funds. The Housing Needs Assessment and some other early work was funded by Highland Council.  The design team work to date has been funded by: 

  • Community Regeneration Fund, which is a mix of four different grant funds administered by Highland Council
  • Crown Estate Scotland’s Community Capacity Programme
  • Highland Council
  • Scottish Government’s Rural & Island Housing Fund

More detailed background information to this project:

In 2019, Assynt Development Trust agreed to explore the possibility of a community purchase of the Church of Scotland Glebe. The Church of Scotland had expressed a willingness to sell this land to a local community group.

The Glebe was included, along with Highland Council-owned brownfield sites around Lochinver Harbour, in the 2019 Site Development Options Appraisal.  Architect Matt Bridgestock of John Gilbert Architects created initial sketches of possible development of the Glebe in that project.   Highland Council’s Housing Development team gave their support for the proposal of creating affordable housing on the Glebe, and funded a site visit by their Environmental Officer.

Funding was approved in February 2020 from the Scottish Land Fund, Highlands & Islands Enterprise and Assynt Development Trust, allowing feasibility and business planning work to take place to demonstrate feasibility of purchase and development of the Glebe land.  Communities Housing Trust were appointed to take on this work.

The feasibility and planning work was carried out alongside local community consultation, in the form of an online survey, due to 2020 lockdown restrictions preventing public meetings at that time.  That initial consultation demonstrated community support for purchase and mixed-use development, especially affordable housing development.   

The work carried out by Communities Housing Trust looked at a variety of developments and uses of Glebe land, including affordable housing, recreation and tourism facilities, outdoor education, paths, mountain bike trails, woodland crofts, enterprise units, and other ideas suggested in responses to the community survey.  On the basis of this work, an application was made to Stage 2 of the Scottish Land Fund, which in November 2020 approved funding of 95% of purchase costs of the Glebe. The remainder of the cost was covered by Assynt Development Trust.  The transfer of the Glebe was completed in March 2021. See the press release on our blog page here, or download it as a pdf file here. The Press & Journal article about the purchase can be seen here.

A steering group was established, with two sub-groups to progress housing development and other land-related developments.  This group includes representatives from Communities Housing Trust, Assynt Community Council, Assynt Foundation (as neighbouring landowner), Lochinver Primary School,  Woodland Trust Scotland and the Woodland Crofts Partnership.

Minutes of the meetings of these groups are available below. 

Minutes of Steering Group & Subgroup meetings

Other information

Design work feedback report November 2023

Design work consultation content as banners April 2023

Glebe Consultation Survey report 2020

Habitat Map of the Glebe 2017

Concept map from 2020 planning stage with possible path routes and bridge towards primary school

More information on woodland crofts

https://www.communitywoods.org/woodland-crofts

http://www.woodlandcrofts.org/