Rural Community Gateway

Welcome to Getting to know you, the regular feature profiling Rural Gateway members.

Name: Phil Olson
Occupation: Fading IT business person becoming novitiate opinionated old curmudgeon
Location: Ardgay, Sutherland

Why do you choose to live where you do?

Through  the usual accidental course of life choices over a few continents, there emerged a permanent home in an area which has made me feel more at home week by week and year by year.

What is the biggest issue facing your area?

For me to state what ‘this area’ thinks is the biggest issue is a presumption too far. Issues which I care about and am willing to spend thinking time analysing and doing something about are reducing as time goes by as it becomes apparent that as a private individual one can have limited influence, so choosing what issues to address becomes important.

Planning is one such. This is very depressing as the pressures bearing on this locality seem little different from pressures in urban areas and the system coping with these pressures appears either hidebound or manipulated by lawmakers and developers. 

It is not correct to suppose that our rural environment is more beautiful or more fragile than some urban ones. But it is right that some attitudes in both  areas ignore the positive qualities an environment brings to individuals. Too often personal gain scores more highly than benefit for the commonweal and the planning system seems little able to address a balance.

As a single issue, planning, good or inadequate, overbearing or non-applicable contributes greatly to the environment which we expect to provide our sustenance and a good deal of enjoyment.

If you could change one thing to make your area better, what would it be?

It is singular in being a simple abstract noun but has complex ramifications: land usage. 

We start with MacCaig and Wightman; who owns this land?

Certainly the High Court and the Land Court know who owns Scotland. But who owns these courts and who should own the benefits of the land? Is the balance of benefit settled correctly?

Here is where I would like to see change. The start of the change process must be in attitudes not title deeds. When the population has a beneficial view of the land, its value and its potential then social problems may become manageable. Higher incomes, more choices for work and for families should follow a more beneficial attitude to the land.

One simple example, instructive to me, is the new mountain biking phenomena.  "The slopes behind Golspie are owned by . . . , are used for . . ." was an entrenched attitude before someone looked up and believed they saw biking trails. Unblocking that attitude one immediately looks afresh at the shoreline and the near waters of the Moray Firth, at other woods or minor roads. The attitude to the beneficial potential of the land changed. Surely it was similar in Lochaber and the Glentress area where biking seems to have come from nowhere. That means benefit came from nowhere but a change in attitude.

Apart from where you live, what is your favourite place in rural Scotland?

I cannot include Edinburgh, so it must be the uphill way on the north side of Cul Mhor. This brings gentle upward slopes to warm the snowiest spring day followed by the stiff ascent which is always shorter than feared, and as always, the surprise glimpse – still a surprise after 30 years – of that odd thing, Suilven, standing off north on the 3 billion year old gneissic platform which resists the Atlantic for us and presents the remote and rural development issues we chew over.

What three words best describe your part of rural Scotland?

Far – from the luxurious developments which our civilisation has both offered us and consequently demands that we conform to for support.

Not-too-far – from the benefits our advanced culture offers us.

Amenable and supportive people –  who comprise local friends and neighbours.

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