Riddoch on the Outer Hebrides by Lesley Riddoch sampler

Preface to 2022 Edition
It’s 15 years since I sat down to write this book, after cycling the length
of the Western Isles for a BBC Radio Scotland series. High time for an
update. I've kept the original events and my own perceptions unchanged
to provide an accurate snapshot of Hebridean life in 2006 – but important
developments are contained in a new postscript.
One development, however, deserves immediate attention.
In 2006, most of the 180 miles we cycled and drove across were owned by
large, private and generally absentee owners, as they had been for centuries.
Since then, an incredible change has taken place – the amount of
community-controlled land on the Western Isles has almost doubled in 15
short years, leaving just a quarter in private hands.
Credit for the historic shift is entirely due to islanders. Motivation
was provided by long years of exclusion. Inspiration was provided by the
pioneering home-grown buyout of North Harris in 2003.
And organisation was provided (in part) by the framework of crofting
which meant local people had worked and planned together long before
big questions about land buyouts were posed. Anyway, the change has been
quietly epic – facts are chiels that winna ding. (The facts speak for themselves.)
Before 2006 cycle
Acres (thousands)
Stornoway (gifted in 1923 by Lord Leverhulme) 69.2
Bhlatos (Valtos), 1998 1.7
North Harris, 2003 62
Aline Community Woodland Erisort trust, 2005 1.6
Total: 134.5
After 2006 cycle
Stòras Uibhist, 2006 93.9
Galson, 2007 55.8
West Harris, 2010 19
Scalpay, 2012 1.5
Carloway, 2015 11.4
Pairc, 2015 28
Barvas, 2016 34.5
Gallan Head, 2016 0.1
Keose Glebe, 2016 1.2
Total: 245.4
So, roughly 75 per cent of folk on the Western Isles now live on community
owned land and Community Land Outer Hebrides is ‘building upon this
success,’ which suggests more is in the offing.
Change has been dramatic because those absentee-owned estates were
dramatically large and a domino effect means each community buyout has
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