The struggle to find a home in a picture-postcard village

Sitting on the shores of Loch Broom, Ullapool is one of the most popular tourist spots in the Highlands.

The fishing village and surrounding area, which is set among picture-postcard hills, lochs and coastline, has a population of just 2,200.

But for people who want to live and work in the community, it is a huge challenge to find somewhere affordable to call home.

High costs, a booming tourism industry and issues affecting the building industry have been blamed for the problem.

Lochbroom and Ullapool Community Trust, which has been examining the housing challenges, describes the lack of homes as a "very real and present crisis".

Some families have spent years trying to find a suitable property.

Marine scientist and mum-of-two Ailsa McLellan said it felt like she had been living on property websites for the past five years.

Ailsa has been trying to find a home after her marriage broke down, but has so far been unable to find somewhere to buy or rent due to a lack of long-term lets.

She has been living at a friend's house while she searches for a home.

"Even the very few houses that come up in the area that I can almost afford are just terrible," she said.

"The energy rates are really low. Most of them are oil-fired so I would be moving into a property I could not afford to heat.

"There is no good housing stock."

She said there were also issues when plots of land where someone could build their own home became available.

"The expense of the plot is generally quite high and you're likely to have to put in a private septic, your own access on often steep, rocky ground, and a connection to the electricity supply.

"The cost of a transformer for the electricity can be over £10,000."

Hairdresser Georgie McIntosh and her music tutor husband David John moved to Ullapool from Edinburgh in 2017 with their young sons Archie and Isaac.

They were initially able to rent privately before securing a modern two-bedroom council property in 2020.

Last summer, David John's teenage cousin Jacqueline moved in following a family bereavement.

The family is on a waiting list for a larger property while they pursue their dream of owning their own home. They have looked into solutions such as a house swap.

But Georgie said: "Ideally, we would love to buy.

"We've secured a mortgage but the likelihood of us being able to buy with what we can get and what we have saved is slim. Housing to buy is pretty crazy - our budget is pretty much the asking price."

She said they had recently managed to make a bid on a property 3% over the asking price, but it went for 10% over.

Georgie said they were determined to keep looking.

She said: "Ullapool is home for us now. We have made friends here and for us to move away we would lose so much."

Lochbroom and Ullapool Community Trust (LUCT) and the Communities Housing Trust (CHT) have been investigating the housing issues.

Their research found between July 2020 and June 2022 the average house price in the area was £256,000, while the most popular budget among people they spoke to was £150,000 or below.

The study also suggested the average income in the area was likely to be about £25,000 per annum, limiting people's spending power.

Ullapool is a popular tourist spot and a stop on the scenic North Coast 500 route.

LUCT and CHT's study found almost 13% of the housing stock in the local area consisted of second homes or holiday accommodation, compared to a figure of about 6% for the Highland Council area in total.

The trusts said the number of second homes and holiday lets would undoubtedly have increased since those figures were gathered as part of the 2011 Census.

Brendan O'Hanrahan, of LUCT, said at least 70 new households were looking for homes within the next five years.

He said: "That's quite significant in somewhere as small as Ullapool and Lochbroom.

"The vast majority would be school leavers and people in their early 20s, who want to form independent households.

"At the moment, unfortunately, the prospects for them are pretty bleak."

CHT's Ronnie Macrae said Brexit and Covid had hit the construction industry hard in terms of labour and materials and this had increased the already high cost of building rural housing.

But he added that community-led housing offered a potential solution having "come on leaps and bounds over recent years".

Mr Macrae said transformational projects had already been completed in Wester Ross, including in Applecross, Lochcarron, Gairloch and Achiltibuie.

He said: "These have been enabled in a large part by the introduction of the Scottish Land Fund and importantly the Rural and Island Housing Fund.

"We are currently working with many communities in Wester Ross on proposals for more community-led development."

Availability of land is a major issue, according to Community Land Scotland.

Much of the rocky and hilly terrain is unsuitable for housing plots and large areas of Wester Ross are in the hands of a small number of landowners.

Community Land Scotland chairwoman Ailsa Raeburn said communities needed help in persuading landowners to release land for homes.

She said: "There is good Scottish government support for communities that want to build housing, but the final piece is land reform to give communities more power to bring forward suitable sites."

The local authority, Highland Council, has an aim to deliver 60 new affordable homes in the area by 2028 - with 50 in Ullapool and 10 more about 24 miles (37km) away in Achiltibuie.

But a spokeswoman said: "The developments depend on securing land and finance.

"The final tenure mix is yet to be agreed but will include opportunity for low-cost home ownership as well as mid-market rent as well as social rent by the council or housing partner."

The Scottish government also said good quality housing was essential to attracting and retaining people in rural communities.

A spokesman said: "We have committed to delivering 110,000 affordable homes across Scotland by 2032 - with at least 10% in our remote, rural and island areas."

He said £3.5bn funding was being made available in this parliamentary term towards the delivery of affordable homes in Scotland.

The spokesman added the government was also developing a Remote, Rural and Islands Housing Action Plan, which would be published this spring.

BBC Radio 4's Rental Health series will examine how housing has posed challenges to Ullapool's business community on Monday 27 March.

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