NC500 boss says: ‘We must stop our communities becoming nothing more than retirement villages’
Business Focus by David Richardson
After 13 years and some 156 monthly columns for the Groat and Raggie, this is my last written on behalf of the Federation of Small Businesses, so I thought that I’d bow out with the issue that concerns me most.
The Highlands really is an amazing place to live, work and play, explaining why so many people choose to retire here, but all is not well. For as FSB Scotland has repeatedly pointed out, many businesses are struggling, the population is ageing and declining, and if things continue as forecasters predict, ever more rural villages are going to become little more than retirement communities – communities lacking many of the schools, shops, inns, cafes, tradespeople, care workers and jobs that residents need and expect.
And the more these things cease to exist, the less attractive communities become for young people wishing to stay on, and young families wishing to move in.
But all is most certainly not lost, for we have the prospect of some serious investment in the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport and renewables generally, and for the vast tracts of the Highlands that will not benefit directly, we have tourism.
Tourism is the Highlands’ most important industry, directly and indirectly underpinning the majority of the most demographically threatened communities, and renewables aside, there is nothing that comes close to replacing it.
So, what do we do, plough on with our lives as though nothing’s amiss, looking after our own interests ‘I’m all right Jack’-style while our population ages and declines and local economies and communities struggle and fail? Or do we see ourselves as custodians for future generations and work together to prove the doom-and-gloom forecasters wrong and ensure sustainable populations and economies right across the Highlands?
To me the future will be bright only if we all – politicians, governments, the public, private and third sectors and communities – come together to grasp the thistle, seizing the many opportunities resulting from initiatives like the North Coast 500, fixing the negatives, and making tourism work for everyone.
This will undoubtedly require investment, determination, cooperation and give-and-take, but what’s the alternative?
• David Richardson is the departing regional development officer for the Federation of Small Businesses.