New Year, New Update

Happy new year everyone! We are back in action after a very nice Christmas break – well, one of us is, the other is hiking his way through New Zealand, I don’t sound jealous do I? But not to worry, Tom has made sure to write up all his pre Christmas activities so we can share an update with you all.

Housing

We have made some exciting steps forward in the last month with housing!  A formal offer has gone in on the property in Inverarish and things are moving along nicely with the larger retrofit project. 

In the last weeks we have been in talks with the Highland Council Climate Change and Energy team who have agreed to adopt the collective retrofit project and submit a special funding bid to take it forward. The beauty of addressing the project like this means households that may not qualify for any of the grant and or loan schemes can self fund but get the retrofit work done at the same time by an accredited contractor. Social housing can also be included which means the council houses could get some much needed tlc. 

What does this look like on the ground? – I have reviewed the Home Energy Scotland reports and will have discussions with each home to talk over the options and see if they would like to be involved. From there, the council contractors will visit to design the proposals based on what measures the householder or tenant wishes to have installed. All the work will then be carried out in one go!

Onto the next big hurdle – accommodation. As with most places in the Highlands and Islands it is almost impossible to find accommodation at a reasonable price during the warmer months when you would most like to be carrying out renovations. In addition to this affecting contractors coming here to do the work, it also has an impact on people who may want to retrofit their home but have nowhere to move out to. The costs of accommodation for the contractor can be absorbed in the costs of installation (making them significantly higher) but unfortunately none of the funding out there, even the ones targeting fuel poverty, account for the residents not having anywhere to go whilst works are underway. To try and rectify this, we are looking to utilise the property in the village that we are currently in the process of purchasing for project accommodation. Exactly how we do this is still under discussion as that house also needs some tlc.

The pictures below show the architects visit to the property in the village.

More housing please! There are currently 41 people who have Raasay selected as their first or second choice on the Highland Housing Register and with a population of 179 (updated figure coming end of Jan 2024 and expected to have increased) that is a large percentage! So, in the last few weeks we have also been in touch with the empty homes officer for the area who has agreed to contact all the registered empty homes and gauge interest in selling their property to the community or entering into some sort of arrangement to let it out long term.   

Community Hall

Our work with the hall has 3 separate yet interlinked aspects to it. The heating is now running and an in depth look at the story of the heatpump will be published shortly. The remaining 2 strands are the doors and the Solar PV. Finding a suitable door solution lead to a more in depth dive into the world of doors than expected. Mainly complicated by the fact that the replacement doors are being fitted in a sports hall, which calls for glass thick enough for the highest of world leaders’ limousines. This heavy strong glass is partially the reason the doors need to be replaced in the first place. A little photo reminder below on why they need replacing.

Cautious to not repeat history, the criteria was to install doors that will last, stand up to the elements and provide the community with years of thermally efficient access. The 3 options were PVC, Aluminium Clad and Aluminium framed doors. The later being the strongest by far and most often used in commercial situations. After consideration, aluminium framed was the only solution to meet all these criteria, the hold back, money! 

Commercial grade aluminium framed don’t come cheap, after much shopping around we finally found a supplier that met our criteria and budget, Pennycook Patent Glazing. This endeavor is collaboratively funded by HIE, and the CNI project. This collaboration has allowed us to find a solution that is right for the job and offers the hall a big upgrade on what was. At time of writing, the initial deposit has been paid and the order placed with the aspiration to start the manufacturing process for installation in February 2024. 

The Solar PV and battery storage project will hopefully be funded by Local Energy Scotland. In December we submitted our application to the CARES community buildings fund. The outcome of this should be announced soon! Once/if this is awarded, the installer can submit a G99 application to join the grid. Running in theme with all the hall projects this has been complicated by the unusual roof structure, which is cladded with larch. Whilst beautiful and great for winning awards, it’s in a state of rot in areas and installing the panels directly on the larch is not a good idea. For this reason we are having to explore the removal of it prior to installation. Additionally we are getting a structural assessment of the proposed solar array to ensure the halls roof is up for becoming a mini 21 kw solar farm. 

Land 

We have now formed the ‘Raasay land advisory group’ (whats one more group on Raasay?!). On top of working with us to ground truth the carbon audits, the group will advise us on any future projects in the area, providing local knowledge and to help keep any project rooted in community interest. The group has met and raised some initial areas for attention, one of them being peatlands.

Raasay has a large land mass, often cited to be the same size as Manhattan. Lots of this consists of peat soils, which contain vasts amount of carbon. In Scotland it’s estimated they store 1.7 billion tons of carbon which is around 140x Scotlands annual emissions! 

While acting as carbon stores, peatlands can also be a source of emissions, depending on their condition. The exact state of our peatlands is yet to be determined here. Our initial land carbon audit did not identify peat as a large emission source, but there was a high level of uncertainty in these findings. On the ground, we can see with our own eyes exposed areas of peat, a clear indicator of poor condition. Restoring peat can improve vegetation coverage and help it retain its carbon. We’ll be working with local grazing committees and other relevant stakeholders to investigate this further.

Raasay and its Rhododendron habit

Concerns around the spread of ‘invasive’ species were raised by the community in September. Since then, we have had a visit from an ecologist who shared these concerns and flagged this issue as a major threat to the island’s biosphere. Primarily of concern is Rhododendron, sitka spruce and bracken. 

Each of these pose different threats and require a different approach to manage. To give us a baseline and inform a control strategy we’re looking to do a mapping exercise. Any management strategy to control these invasive species will be complex. Because Raasay is primarily owned by the Scottish ministers, with Forestry Land Scotland owning a minority share, along with much of the land used as common grazings, any project would need to work in conjunction with the relevant stakeholder. 

In November, Tom was fortunate to head out to the East Coast with 2 ecological experts, Stephen Bungurd, and Alisdair Firth to talk about future Raasay forest projects possibilities. With many factors in the mix and the threat of invasive species, any project would be challenging, but not impossible!

Start Local

Raasay House Community Company which own Raasay House along with some land have been awarded a £25,000 grant which we are match funding with £5,000 to remove Rhododendron on their land. This process will serve as a learning opportunity for community lead invasive species removal. 

Food

Is there anything that tastes better than locally grown food? Our food group have been working hard looking into the restoration of the victorian glasshouses in the community walled garden and setting up fully funded (CNI and RHCC collaboration) get growing workshops to run throughout 2024. This will take people through the different stages of the growing process, provide the necessary equipment and create a collaborative learning environment for anyone who wishes to learn how to grow their own food.

Restoring the glasshouses is an expensive undertaking but this financial year we are focusing on the prep work that needs to be done before any funding applications can be submitted. We have initiated a wall and structural engineers survey and will be looking to carry out initial ground works to flatten and prepare the site.

Get In Touch? 

We are planning to do regular blog updates to share and track our progress though if you have something specific you would like to know please get in touch. You’ll find our contact details on the home page or in the link below. 

Carbon Neutral Islands