14 Jun Dougie Baird chats about the Fairy Pools car park project on the OnFarm podcast
Following a double win for OATS’ projects at the Helping it Happen Awards 2022, our CEO Dougie Baird was invited to contribute to the second part of the Helping It Happen Awards from Scottish Land & Estates: what it means to win, on the OnFarm – Scottish rural stories Podcast – the second of three podcasts in the series.
You can listen to what Dougie and a couple of other award winners had to say about their projects here https://pod.fo/e/17a6e3 or at www.podfollow.com/onfarm
It has also been uploaded to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify if these are more convenient.
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In October 2022 the Fairy Pools car park and off-grid toilets development project on Skye and The Mountains and The People project in Scotland’s national parks both won Helping it Happen Awards from Scottish Land & Estates.
The overall focus of the awards is on recognising the role estates, farms and rural businesses play in enabling and supporting success in rural communities, rural businesses, and rural landscapes, a true demonstration of the way in which rural businesses help Scotland to thrive.
The nine award categories focus on areas in which rural businesses are positively impacting Scotland’s economy and environment; and how rural businesses interact with their local communities and with visitors.
The Fairy Pools car park and toilets development project on Skye, in which OATS provided a unique solution to a local problem created by the global phenomenon of social media-driven tourism, won the Tourism and Visitor Management Award, sponsored by GLM.
The Fairy Pools project
In recent years annual visitor numbers at Skye’s iconic Fairy Pools have risen exponentially, from 13,000 in 2006 to 180,000 recorded in 2019. The resulting car parking and toileting problems created in a remote glen, accessed using a single-track road, have been severe, with local residents, businesses, and emergency services dealing with significant disruption.
The Minginish Community Hall Association (MCHA) used the Community Asset Transfer scheme to acquire the land from Forestry and Land Scotland and leased the site to OATS. OATS fundraised the £800,000 budget, project managed the construction, and now operates and maintains the car park and off-grid toilets.
The hugely successful landlord/tenant collaboration forged between MCHA and OATS is the perfect model to demonstrate how effective third-sector partnerships can address these issues, whilst giving OATS and the community additional income for local and national projects.