Islanders bid to make history with first hostile land buyout

ISLANDERS have submitted new plans to take over an estate, in what would be Scotland's first hostile community buyout.

The community has been trying for five years to buy the 25,000-acre Pairc Estate in Lewis, where a 26-turbine wind farm is planned. A decision on the development is awaited from the Scottish Government.

It had been hoped an amicable deal could be achieved, but talks with the landowner, Barry Lomas, broke down.

A major stumbling block has been a 75-year lease the landlord set up with a subsidiary company, Pairc Renewables, which then signed a deal with Scottish and Southern Energy to build the wind farm on the land.

The community-led Pairc Trust said yesterday it had submitted two new linked applications to ministers to purchase the larger part of the Pairc Estate and the 75-year lease.

The trust chairman, Angus McDowall, said: "Following five years of frustration and delaying tactics by our landlord, we are now asking ministers to take a decision as speedily as possible on our applications.

The trust said the interposed lease was needed, not to get income from the wind farm, but to take control of the estate for community projects and to regenerate the area where the population has fallen from about 4,000 a century ago to fewer than 400.

Mr Lomas has previously claimed that the trust had shunned an offer of an amicable deal, which would have allowed a transfer by this month.