It was the surprise announcement that drew the biggest applause of Nicola Sturgeon’s keynote speech seven years ago at the SNP autumn conference.
The last-minute addition slotted neatly into the section where the then First Minister spoke of her government’s efforts to ‘empower communities’ and bring ‘more autonomy for our islands’.
That very day, she declared, ministers had given permission for the people of Ulva – a tiny isle off the west coast of Mull – to bring their island into community ownership.
A new chapter in ‘Scotland’s modern journey of land reform’ was about to begin.
Or so the nation was asked to believe. Seven years on, the reality on Ulva could hardly be more different from the idyll breezily imagined from the conference lectern.
Former First Minister dreamt of enabling ‘more autonomy for our islands’
Far from being empowered, islanders complain of powerlessness. As for autonomy, they say it is absent here. All the sovereignty lies in the hands of people who live elsewhere.
Relationships between those on Ulva and the body on Mull which governs their 5000-acre isle have ‘soured to the point of personal damage’ to wellbeing, according to a report by the Development Trust Association Scotland (DTAS), which supports community ownership projects.
And it is not hard to see why. For years the water coming from Ulva taps has been so dirty it poses a high risk to human health. The island is beset with sewage issues.
Those who raised complaints, the DTAS found, had been either ‘ignored’ or ‘labelled as difficult’.
Calling for an urgent ‘reset’, it added: ‘There is a deep feeling that the decisions for Ulva residents are made “off island” and imposed on them.’
Many buildings lie empty and in an advanced state of decay – including a 200-year-old church designed by Thomas Telford and Ulva House, the former landlord’s pile.
Talking of landlords, some on this isle have come to the view they have merely been passed from one laird to another – and at least the last one lived on Ulva. At least he got along with everyone.
The island of Ulva was brought into community ownership as part of Ms Sturgeon’s land reform vision
A 200-year-old church designed by Thomas Telford on the island lies empty and disused
That was Jamie Howard, whose family had owned the island for more than 70 years until 2017.
He was prevented from selling Ulva to the highest bidder following Ms Sturgeon’s announcement which, he said, he was told nothing of in advance.
Embittered, perhaps, by what they saw as underhand tactics to grease the wheels for the community bid, his family wished their former neighbours on Ulva well, but observed that ‘the road to this moment has been a somewhat dark one.’
Their statement at the time added: ‘The strong indication is that the driving impulse for this acquisition has been, and is, not so much for the welfare of Ulva and its resident community but more to satisfy the long-held personal ambitions of a few relatively local individuals on the island of Mull; to benefit SNP party politics and prejudices and to feed media headlines.’
As discontent grows among the 16 residents now living on Ulva, might the Howards have had a point?
‘We’re practical, independent adults on Ulva, when we’re allowed to be,’ Nicholas Waller, 63, tells the Mail.
The former solicitor adds: ‘For me, within a few months of moving to Ulva in December 2022, it started to become clear that the only real problems on Ulva were the ticks – which are intense – and a lack of transparency, consultation and respect in the way of the management company, a community-owned charity called the North West Mull Community Woodland Company, dealt with the Ulva islanders.’
In his time there, he says, ‘I’ve never heard any islander say a good word for the Woodland company.’
Longer-standing residents include Rhuri and Rebecca Munro and their two children Matilda and Ross.
Mr Munro, who operates the ferry between Ulva and Mull, says his family are no longer comfortable talking openly about the island.
Jamie Howard’s family owned the island for more than seven decades until 2017
Residents purchased an electric off-road vehicle to travel around the island
The Boathouse Tearoom on Ulva
Days earlier, his wife had told the investigative news website The Ferret the dirty water issue had dragged on far too long.
‘It doesn’t look great if you try to have a bath,’ she said. ‘You get an instant tan.’
She added: ‘Clean water doesn’t seem like that much of a deal when it’s something you’re paying for.’
Mrs Munro also observed: ‘At times, it feels a little bit like we still are just tenants of another landowner.’
Another resident who has experienced life under the old landlord and the new one is Barry George, originally from Newcastle Upon Tyne.
He told the same website NWMCWC’s management of the island had been a ‘disaster’.
He said of Ulva House: ‘It’s rotten. It’s stood empty for six years, and anybody who lives on the west coast knows you can’t leave a property empty, you’ve got to get it heated. It’s now got to be completely gutted, which is going to be a huge expense.’
How, then, did the vision for Ulva fall so far short of that trailed by Ms Sturgeon at the 2017 SNP conference?
In the first place, she may have created a false impression as to who was actually buying the island.
It was not strictly the islanders – who numbered just five in 2017, excluding Mr Howard – but the NWMCWC which, along with Ulva, represents an area of northwest Mull with a population of 300.
Even if the five were part of the community that owned it, they would remain tenants – only now with a new landlord.
And was it really a community buy-out? Only a small fraction of the £4.6 million needed for the purchase came from the community. The lion’s share was public money.
An unprecedented Scottish Land Fund award of £4.4 million – more than four times its standard limit of £1 million – was showered on the deal.
But the numbers were largely obscured by the excited talk of repopulating Ulva, which was home to as many as 570 in the 1840s – and the search soon began for candidates ready to embrace the new era there.
Ulva resident Nicholas Waller has been critical of the way the island is run
Mr Waller was told he was not allowed to bring a car on to the island
One of them turned out to be Mr Waller, who had moved from County Sligo to Mull to start a summer school teaching English and now translates legal and medical documents for a living.
On moving to Ulva with his cat Appin, he soon discovered the extent to which the island he had left ruled the one where he now lived.
Money was committed to what he saw as ‘vanity projects’ rather than more urgent and practical concerns such as leaking roofs and raw sewage spewing out of Ulva’s slipway.
Tens of thousands were spent on electric off-road buggies and a membership scheme had to be established to use them. Their last service and repair cost £4,000, he says. It is a Cambridge firm that has to do it.
Last week, says Mr Waller, one buggy was put out of action by a split tyre. The other is waiting for a new transaxle.
‘At the moment, the company has exactly zero functioning vehicles on Ulva.’
Mr Waller wanted to bring across a Land Rover but was reminded no cars of any sort for tenants were allowed, though quad bikes are acceptable.
‘Not much use if you have a toddler, a bad leg or three weeks’ worth of shipping to shift,’ he says.
The reason, he says, for NWMCWC’s refusal to budge was its fear that islanders would not insure their vehicles and would abandon them on Ulva when they broke down – which he describes as an ‘interesting insight’ into their ‘us-adults, you-children attitude’.
He soon decided to efforts to become a ‘director-trustee’ of the board himself and, in June last year, succeeded in joining it as the island’s sole representative.
He says: ‘I wanted to work from inside the company [and], by fairly gentle persuasion, to improve the very poor relationship between the board and my fellow islanders.’
Only quad bikes and electric off road vehicles are permitted on the island
He was in post just seven weeks and says of his tenure: ‘I never found out any more about its operations while I was a member of the board than anybody can find by visiting the website and reading the newspapers.
‘I found out more by talking with the company’s tenants.’
The circumstances of his dismissal from the board remain an enigma – even, apparently, to Mr Waller.
He says he received an email from the board’s solicitor referring to his dealings with a contractor who had installed hot water cylinders outside properties rather than inside as they were meant to be.
He took issue with every point in it, but was told his fellow directors would meet in private a few hours later to decide what to do. They chose dismissal, he claims, without hearing from him.
He tells the Mail: ‘I’ve never managed to get to the bottom of this “dismissal”: it does not seem to me to make sense on its own terms; and it seems clear that it was unlawful and invalid.’
He adds: ‘I was not allowed to attend or even listen to the dismissal hearing and I had no chance to hear or respond to allegations made against me.
‘I was, in the most literal sense of the phrase, “condemned unheard”.’
This year, he attempted to join the board once more – again as its sole Ulva-based representative.
He says he was the only candidate not accepted by the ballot of members, which, he believes, was due to a new ‘blackballing’ mechanism used in the vote.
He says: ‘So what, you may be wondering, did Nicholas Waller do to deserve all this special attention?
‘I think the answer is that I was a very quiet, diffident, brand-new director-trustee right up until my dismissal, barely saying anything apart from “hello” and “Yes” at the few board meetings I attended. But in the year since my “dismissal” I have asked an awful lot of questions, without receiving any answers. Are these awkward questions? I don’t know.’
A sign directing visitors on the tiny island
What has become obvious to him, however, is the lack of answers has left the seven adults on Ulva angry and disillusioned.
‘“Bearing a serious grudge” might not be too strong a word for it,’ he says.
‘Confidentiality is just another word for keeping secrets. Refusing to tell people about things that directly affect them is likely to be seen as both secretive and high-handed; a return to lairdism.
‘The world has moved on. Even in corporate life, knee-jerk secrecy and “need to know” is out of fashion.’
The most serious bone of contention, perhaps, is the water supply.
Mr Waller says: ‘I didn’t know the water was a “high risk to human health” until just before the problem was fixed a couple of weeks ago.’
Yet a TransTech report dating from November 2021 found it dangerous.
He says: ‘As far as I know, none of TransTech’s warnings about a high risk to human health, or practical advice to users about filtering and boiling water pending completion of the work, were passed on to residents until just a few weeks ago.
‘So unless the board has a good explanation, yes, I would say they were neglectful. I have asked them for their explanation. As always, they haven’t responded.’
Rubbing salt in the wound was the decision last month by existing board members to remain in post – despite indicating they would stand down prior to the AGM. This, they said, was to ‘provide continuity.’
It means the board is made up on old members and several new ones – none of whom lives on Ulva.
For his part, Mr Waller has contacted the Office for the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) to ask for an inquiry.
‘My thinking is the board may have perfectly good explanations for everything I’ve asked about, but they won’t respond to me; maybe they’ll respond to the OSCR.’
Despite it all, Mr Waller remains ‘excited about the ways in which Ulva could develop, it gets a chance and a bit of vision.’
Passengers take the ferry to Ulva to celebrate the sale of the island to residents in 2018
Anne Cleave, chair of NWMCWC told the Mail: ‘I can assure you that, at all times, the board behaves according to our articles.
‘Wherever we may have a concern, we take advice from our legal advisor and/or our financial advisor.’
She added: ‘We are answerable to the usual requirements of both Companies House and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.’
She said that ‘Nicholas Waller knows exactly why he was excluded from the Board which, she said, was made up of a group of committed volunteers.’
Ms Cleave added: ‘While we know we don’t always get things right we are always ready to take advice from our consultants.’
In a separate statement, the board accepted a clearer complaints procedure was needed and said it shared concerns that no Ulva resident was on the board.
It said: ‘Immediately after the AGM an email invitation was sent to all Ulva residents asking them to consider putting themselves forward to be co-opted onto the Board.
‘So far, we have received one reply in which the offer was declined, and a further reply from the candidate who had been rejected by the membership at the AGM.’
Many millions in public funds have been ploughed into Ulva since Ms Sturgeon’s bold announcement in 2017.
For now the island idyll they were meant to pay for is mired in decay, sewage and discontent.
Mr Waller describes his fellow islanders as ‘ruggedly independent’. They would have to be.
