Gairloch peaceful protest as GALE plans for The Shieling called into question amidst step down calls

Around 80 Gairloch residents and business owners held a peaceful protest over concerns about the local development trust’s purchase of a neighbourhood bar, writes Ally Tibbitt.

The Gairloch And Loch Ewe Action Forum (GALE) purchased The Shieling Bar after winning substantial grant funding from the Scottish Land Fund and the UK Government.

The organisation successfully bought the building despite the emergence of a last-minute rival bid from another local business. The charity has said it plans to trial a number of uses in The Shieling including a community bar, a “pop-up” restaurant, a community bakery and office accommodation.

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A meeting had been arranged by GALE at The Shieling, so that selected locals could find out more about future plans for the building, but managers at the charity cancelled the event after claiming that they had taken advice from Police Scotland over “threats” and the risk of “public disorder.”

Despite the meeting cancellation, concerned locals decided to gather anyway in a bid to make their feelings known. Some held placards calling for “honesty,” “transparency,” and “community engagement” from GALE as well as “transition” to a new management team.

Wendy Watson, owner of the Farm and Garden store, said she attended the protest because they feared that the expansion of GALE’s commercial activities would threaten their business and those of other small business owners in the area.

“We own the neighbouring business, and this will definitely impact on us,” she said. “And then the local chip shop was going to be moving in, because their current lease is running out. But that obviously can’t happen now, so it looks like we’re going to lose our local chip shop.”
“Instead of putting private businesses out of action they should be doing things that aren’t already in the community.”

Another local business owner, Kimberley McKeely, runs a small bakery business from a base in Poolewe. She already supplies the Gairloch Farm And Garden shop and a number of other firms in the area.

GALE have suggested that The Shieling building could be repurposed as a rival bakery, a proposal that McKeely fears could put her out of business. She said she was attending the protest because: “My business and this entire economy is very fragile. If GALE chose to develop a rival bakery business, “my ability to make money will be annihilated,” she claimed.

In her view the GALE management “ought to step down, and it should be built up for the community, by the community.”

But she also argued that Scottish Land Fund administrators should also have demanded an independent business impact study before funding the GALE to purchase another building in the first place.

Louise Gibson, a local resident, said: “I’m here because of the lack of transparency from what’s supposed to be our community organisation.”

“There’s a lot of bad feeling about what’s happening and the local businesses that are likely to be disadvantaged by what they’re talking about doing.”

Although a number of GALE directors including chair Cory Jones were present to observe the protest, all declined to respond to the allegations made by protesters, when approached by the Ross-shire Journal.

Following the protest, Gairloch Community Council arranged for a public meeting about The Shieling to take place at the nearby Community Hall. More than 125 people attended the hour-long meeting.

Locals, including a number of former GALE directors, shared wider concerns over the management of the community development trust, with claims that the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator had upheld a number of historical complaints made over the way the charity was managed.

No representative from GALE attended the meeting, but in an earlier response to the Ross-shire Journal, a spokesperson for GALE said: “We find it hugely frustrating that questions and concerns about our work are directed at journalists and in other forums we have no access to. Very few questions are put to us directly and when they are we welcome them and respond promptly.

“When it comes to the issue of causing disadvantage to existing businesses GALE wholeheartedly refutes this allegation. Over the past 25 years GALE has been working towards economic regeneration of the Gairloch and Loch Ewe area with many of the existing businesses benefiting from this work.”

“Concerns over business displacement of our work at the Shieling were addressed during the community consultation process and were reviewed by the funders to their satisfaction.”

While GALE cancelled its public meeting - which was only to be open to a maximum of 50 people who first had to register their interest - it published its answers to some of the questions posed in advance. These can be read here.

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