COMMUNITY
BIG YEAR AHEAD FOR TINY ULVA Tiny Ulva has a big year ahead of it renovating homes as part of a plan to repopulate the island. Last year 7,000 people made the ferry journey over from Mull to visit the island that was once populated by as many as 800 people now there are just eight who would consider it as home. The island’s development manager Wendy Reid says 2022 is going to be an exciting year. Work has just been
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completed on renovating one of six properties as part of the repopulation project. The first one to be renovated was The Manse, a Grade B Thomas Telford designed building dating back to the early 19th century, originally for the Ulva church minister to live in. For the next while, it will be used to house people living in the next properties to undergo renovation, says Wendy. There are tenants already
for three of the properties, with opportunities for others coming later. Applications are not being taken at the moment. Spread over just 2,000 hectares, there was once 16 townships on the island; it is only the east end that is inhabited today. Funding for the North West Mull Community Woodland Company project to carry out renovation work has come from the Scottish Government’s Rural and
| WINTER 2021/22
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