7th September 2022

Wind farms are commonplace these days but nonetheless remain firmly in the Marmite category – liked and loathed in equal measure.  Personally I like them. Aside from the joy of watching clean renewable energy being harnessed so efficiently, it’s worth remembering there’s nothing essentially new about this technology. In the pre-industrial era our countryside would have been dotted by windmills – albeit with a very different appearance and with wide cloth sails rather than today’s aerodynamic blades. One of the very few still standing, and possibly the finest example of its kind, is being saved for posterity by Carluke Development Trust.

Tourism is worth approximately £6bn a year to the Scottish economy and sustains something like 200,000 jobs. But as locals on Skye and in many parts of Edinburgh will testify, once visitor numbers reach a certain level (aka overtourism), its negative impact on the community can be such that the tourist can become an unwelcome and unsustainable intrusion. But where communities are able to assert some control, and in particular where visitor facilities are community owned, the value of tourism to the local economy quickly becomes a no brainer. On Eigg for instance, tourists are welcomed as ‘temporary locals’.

Although the severity of the cost of living crisis feels on a scale similar to the pandemic, there’s already a sense that the Government response will fall short. And there’s also a sense that community-led services, still in recovery from the pandemic, will somehow have to find the resilience and capacity to respond. In recent years, Men’s Sheds have become a welcome addition to the community landscape supported by a small team at SMSA. Despite facing an uncertain funding future themselves, SMSA continues to find new ways to promote the multiple benefits of Sheds for men’s health and wellbeing.