(water swishing)
- [Poem] An island on the rim of the world,
in that space between slate,
sea and sky,
where air and ocean currents
are plays of wild energy
and the light changes everything.
(music) - My grandfather
and older members of family
have worked in the quarries
when they were opened, as well.
So I often heard stories
and it was always kind of part of the, you know,
just part of the landscape around hearing stories
and a big part of growing up, I think.
Especially in Cullipool, in this end
the quarries are still so prominent.
The slate walls, the slate roofs.
Yes, it was a big part of growing up and,
I think, a part of your identity on Luing,
that you knew a lot about the slates.
And I think...
I don't think maybe enough folk in Scotland
do know that it was such a prominent industry
here on the West Coast,
on the islands here on the West Coast.
(water swishing)
- Luing was one of the Slate Islands.
Cullipool itself is just one of the areas
where we quarried on Luing.
And in fact, although Luing may have had slate quarrying
from about the 13th century,
perhaps even earlier, on a small scale,
it didn't start on to an industrial scale
until the middle of the 18th century.
And even then, Cullipool might not have been opened
until later in the 18th century
and over the start of the 19th century.
I think that the
quarries were a vital part
of the whole island.
There would have been small-scale farming and fishing,
but it was the slate quarrying
that most of the men worked in
and it was the slate quarrying cottages
that most of the population lived in.
- I remember well, in the 60s, as a young boy -
(laughs) hard to believe, eh? -
when the quarry was working,
the activity and the slates going away.
So it was a much bigger thing then,
but it would be wonderful to have production
back on a manageable scale.
It would be good.
(water swishing)
- So we've always been aware, obviously,
that there was a heritage of slating
here on Luing and on the other Slate Islands.
And over the past three years,
we've been working with Highlands and Islands Enterprise
to look at how we can re-establish the exploitation
of traditional materials in Argyle.
And Luing was an obvious place to look
and see what was possible, given the history here.
So partnering with Highlands and Islands Enterprise,
we came to Luing and initiated a discussion
with the Community Trust here,
who expressed an interest in maybe establishing
a slate enterprise that would compliment
life on the island today.
Scottish slate has a particular characteristic,
a particular aesthetic,
and there's a particular skill involved
in using it and laying it
to maintain the tradition of Scottish roofing.
There's a desperate need for it,
from a cultural heritage perspective,
to maintain the historic built environment.
But one of the things that attracts us to this project is,
we think there's also an opportunity
for traditional materials to underpin local economies
and help local communities thrive in a sustainable way.
(bird chirping)
- As part of the Trust, we've been looking at ways
to look at some of the problems the island is facing,
like many other islands these days,
with depopulation and economic issues.
So we're just exploring avenues
to ways we could provide a sustainability
for the island and its own economy
and reverse the depopulation,
encourage people to come and live and work here.
It would provide a natural resource
for the local area that's lacking at the moment.
There's lots of places that are gonna need
to be re-roofed and they could be roofed
with natural slate that doesn't have
the environmental impact of slate that's imported
from all around the world.
And again, it's doing that local sustainability and
trying to enlarge the community here.
(bird chirping)
- Delfinity were engaged by
Highlands and Islands Enterprise
on behalf of the Isle of Luing Community Trust
to do a feasibility study to see
if we could restart, potentially,
the slate extraction and processing industry on Luing,
which is one of the historic Slate Islands.
- So the purpose of today is, first of all, to inform.
It's to explain where we are in the process
and its to ask people about what benefits they might see
from having this kind of potential funds flow
and what their main concerns are
about having, reopening of the slate quarries
in this village.
One of the great things about having that
as a community-owned and managed enterprise,
is that
those benefits would be by the community,
of the community and for the community.
It would retain them in the community,
rather than, you know, losing them elsewhere
if a third party came in.
- So the benefits of the project for the community
would be the ability to have
a long-term sustainable income
that could be used to be invested in other projects
and other benefits for the island.
On top of that, there are potentially up to six jobs
that will be created in an area
that has been historically depopulating.
And I think the thing that surprised us,
when we were initially engaged to do the project,
I think it's fair to say,
we were slightly skeptical about it.
However, the research that we've done to date
and the analysis that we've done to date
was pleasantly surprising,
and in terms of the information that we have so far,
it does look as if it would be, genuinely,
a sustainable and economically viable project.
(wind blowing)
- HIE support communities
in our fragile islands around Argyle to
generate social impacts,
economic impacts, so that they have a chance of
achieving financial sustainability going forward.
So we're keen to look at ways by which
they can take charge of their future themselves
and become more economically prosperous, I suppose,
around jobs, housing.
The biggest challenge is depopulation,
so, holding onto their population,
particularly younger families.
Because if you hold onto young families,
your schools are maintained, et cetera.
And that is the biggest challenge by far,
of all our islands, not just Luing.
The quarry was last in operation in 1962,
so it's been closed for decades.
But when you look at the extent of material there,
with a bit of capital investment,
it's certainly feasible to open it up again.
The next stage has to be to look at the detail of that,
look at further feasibility of that,
maybe do a bit more detailed business planning
and some trialing of that to establish the quality
of the material and the exact extent of it.
But there's certainly a real opportunity
for local people to benefit
from the resource that's on their doorstep there.
- It's so important that we talk
to the community consistently and constantly
about what the proposal is.
We have it, it's right at the early stage but,
you know, everybody knows what the possibilities are
and what the problems are,
and can make an informed decision on it.
- Obviously HES is the lead national body
for the historic environment,
but we're very conscious that any development
around a contentious issue like quarrying
and materials production,
you know, the community has to be totally on board.
And especially here on Luing,
it's vital that it's a community-lead enterprise,
so that we maximize the benefit to the community.
Historically, we built the environment
we see around us today,
we built it from the resources that were near at hand,
that were locally available.
They were exploited and
manufactured using local skills
and supported local employment
and local economies.
And we think we could learn something
from that past in Scotland
and use it to contribute towards the future
of sustainable development.
(wind blowing)
- Even, sort of, in my lifetime,
there's been quite a decline
in younger families living here.
A lot of my generation have grown up
and not a huge amount have returned.
Just with the problems with work locally,
cost of living here, cost of ferry.
'Cause the majority of folk who live here
travel off the island for work.
So you've gotta factor that into any job
that you're looking at in the mainland,
that you're gonna have quite high travel costs.
And then,
the fact of a lack of appropriate
and affordable housing for young folk.
- This is a small-scale slate project,
but I think it would provide jobs,
which is so important for this island.
The population here has been declining for many years,
and it's only really since last November
that we've had new people moving into the village.
Six new people have moved into Cullipool village
since last November, which is really important.
- We have done a lot as a community
to protect ourselves in the past,
but we have to do something different.
Global warming,
especially sea level rise,
is going to become increasingly difficult to manage.
We can't protect everything,
but we can mitigate the damage here.
The slate quarry is a brilliant opportunity
to have material that we have available
and put it on the shore to protect it.
- Quite bad weather during January, February
time of the year.
It impacts on the coastal erosion, quite badly.
So that's something that we can try and cover,
maybe with the spoils from the quarry
and practices being pushed back down
to try and stem that flow of coastal erosion.
- Oh, I'm all for it.
I think if it's going to bring more young people
to the island and more houses, that's great.
Well, I think it'd be very good for the island
if people didn't have to leave the island,
youngsters, for a living.
It'd be good if more of them could stay.
- That would be my biggest thing.
- It's just nice to be able to talk about it
and also see the plans of the quarry,
how the quarry itself might be exploited.
So of course there's a question about
just how you would make a project
like this
work without it placing too much burden,
so that it actually creates as many benefits
as the investment that's required.
'Cause it is a lot of it, it's a lot of investment
to make and to keep things going.
- The potential of the slate quarrying reopening is,
it's an opportunity to showcase
how big a part the Gaelic language was
of the Slate Island Communities.
Gaelic was the language of the quarry.
Gaelic was the language of the home.
It was such a strong, prominent factor.
It was just the way of life here,
right up until the mid 50s, early 60s
when the quarries closed.
And when people left the island, the language declined,
and there's very few Gaelic speakers left
on any of the Slate Islands.
(wind blowing)
- The island, you know, it's not all a museum,
it's a working island.
We need to have younger people here
to take us into the future.
(water swishing)