Geopark Means Business This Year
Am Bratach|No 315, January 2018

Securing long-term government support is a priority, says new chairman

Geopark Means Business This Year

AFTER A troubled year which saw the North West Highlands Geopark resort to crowd funding to ride out a financial crisis, followed by the resignation of three of its directors, the organisation is looking to the future in time for the next annual general meeting, writes Anne Macdonald. This will take place in Scourie Hall on January 20.

“I don’t think it was as bad as it was being portrayed at the time,” said David MacLeod, the geopark’s new chairman, “but it isn’t easy when you lose your officials and everyone is telling you you’re broke.” Mr MacLeod previously served the geopark as a “community” director for the Tongue area. He added: “In reality, funding is always a problem and that’s the case with every committee I’m on. But I’m fairly confident that things are going to carry on being stable. I don’t know that we’ll ever be in a position where we can say we have money in the bank and everything is okay.”

In his view, a more burning problem is the lack of political support at government level. “I feel we get ignored at the higher levels of the Scottish Government and given that we have a UNESCO designation, I would have thought they would be much more interested in what we’re doing. The feedback I’m getting is that when we speak to MSPs on an individual basis, they’re very encouraging, but at some point, it just seems to fizzle out.”

Graham Phillips, a new addition to the geopark staff in 2017, is also preoccupied with this issue. Mr Phillips is a Golspie-based business consultant and former member of the Highland Council.

He has a part-time business development remit for the geopark, scheduled to last for eighteen months, from July 2017.

This story is from the No 315, January 2018 edition of Am Bratach.

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This story is from the No 315, January 2018 edition of Am Bratach.

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