Tell us your ideas for Sutherland

Support the development of the Melvich Community Hub to replace the demolished Melvich Village Hall

The 110+ year old Melvich Village Hall was in a very poor condition. It had been electrically condemned, structural engineers said that it was "not at immediate risk of collapse", had asbestos liabilities, had mice running across the floor during use, had woodworm, was energy inefficient, was freezing cold to visit and had wet/dry rot. An options assessment was performed and the preferred option identified that the best thing to do was to knock down the existing hall, acquire adjacent land and build a new purpose designed community hub. Once the community hub is constructed then it will form a focal point for the communities of Melvich and Portskerra plus the neighbouring communities - the intent is that it will help tackle social isolation, create local employment and be able to provide a social fully inclusive environment so that everyone in the community can participate in activities to the full extent of their abilities. It has also been identified that there are no changing places toilets on the NC500 between Ullapool and Thurso - as part of the design of the Melvich Community Hub there will be changing places toilets installed. Melvich Community SCIO, a volunteer led community anchor organisation, is leading this project and will need significant capital investment to make it a reality. The new facility is being designed to PassivHaus standards and will be certified - this will help to achieve a Net Zero community building. Our community needs this facility, please support it as we currently have no community meeting space in Melvich/Portskerra.

Flood Defence

Golspie must have flood defences to protect existing properties & businesses. Without this all other developments will be jeopardised at best, fruitless at worst.

Children need play parks - there are no functional play parks within the Melvich Community Council area.

The Highland Council closed Portskerra play park in 2020. They had cordoned off some parts of the play park prior to this and removed some of the equipment too. They have now removed all of the play park equipment and the kids have no where local to meet their friends to safely play. If the Highland Council had maintained the play parks properly then the equipment could still have been functional but now we have nothing. With the high fuel prices, many parents are not prepared to drive to another community council area just to let their kids use a play park (unless they are going that way anyway).

East Coast Trail

The coastal trail is a charity-led work in progress on the east coast of Sutherland. Increased Council support for this important project would help it progress faster, benefitting tourism as well as local health and wellbeing.