Case Study: Durness Housing Initiative - Page 3                    previous page · next page            

Next Steps
The Competition
The Development
· The Site
· Site Ownership
· Durness Housing Group
· Day Care Centre
The Final Development
Next Steps
Armed with this telling evidence of housing need in Durness the community sent a copy of the Housing Needs Survey to Scottish Homes. The Chair of the Housing Liaison Group Rev. Donald MacSween subsequently met with Scottish Homes on the 1st April 1993 to discuss the main points of the report.

Scottish Homes agreed that the need for a small housing association development was "well evidenced in the report and Scottish Homes would support the development of such a scheme". They agreed to allocate funds for the project in the 1994/95 financial year. They also agreed that they would support the inclusion of a Tigh Ceilidh (Day Care Centre) in the scheme in partnership with the Social Work Department.

Finally Scottish Homes agreed that the housing association to develop the houses in Durness would be chosen by the Housing Liaison Group in conjunction with Scottish Homes.

The Competition
As there was no local housing association in North West Sutherland three housing associations active in the Highlands were asked if they would like to apply for the Durness development; Kirk Care Housing Association, Albyn Housing Society and Cairn Housing Association.

The three associations were asked to attend interviews in Durness on the 16th August 1993. Each association was asked to make a presentation to the Housing Liaison Group based on a set of questions sent out in advance.

The questions asked the associations to detail their:
· local knowledge and experience
· commitment to community involvement
· rent levels and arrears policies
· allocation policies
· management and maintenance policies
· experience of community care including care & repair
· communication with tenants
· future development programme
 
  
   
Sites at Durness
The Durness sites
 
The local councillor Cllr Francis Keith suggested that the local Estate, Durness Estate, had agreed to donate a site north of existing houses at Hames Place Site 2. This unfortunately had a major outcrop of rock which made it more difficult and expensive to develop.

The Housing Liaison Group asked Albyn to investigate the suitability of Site 2. A report was commissioned from Engineers, the Dinardo Partnership which concluded that the rock problem was significant and would have cost implications which might rule out this site from gaining Scottish Homes approval given the availability of other sites. This was reported to the Group on 27th October 1994, which asked that an investigation be made of another site- Site 3 which was to the rear of the village shop.

Site Ownership
Whilst the discussions were progressing over where the houses would be located. The company which owned all of the site options, a Liechtenstein registered company Vibel SA temporarily went in to liquidation. Vibel owned Durness Estate and were investigating establishing a superquarry in the area (see recent news articles: Offshore accounts hide true identity of Scotland's owners; Village feels the effects of anonymous ownership).

The liquidation meant their Scottish agents were no longer working for them and all enquiries to do with the site had to be routed through a Liechtenstein firm of advocates. The poor communications with the Estate owners meant serious delays in determining whether the estate would choose to donate any other site apart from Site 2 to the community.

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