A brief post to mention that we will be at the Sutherland Show this coming Saturday 20 July in Dornoch.

This is the first time the Woodland Crofts Partnership has attended such an event and we are looking forward to meeting in person anyone interested in woodland crofts.

It is particularly appropriate that our first visit to an agricultural show is in East Sutherland as it is a pioneering area when it comes to woodland crofts. The first new woodland croft created under the provisions of the Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act 2007 was created in Edderton, whilst the first community to gain National Forest Land Scheme approval under the specific woodland crofts measure was Embo. This latter project remains to be progressed so we would be especially pleased to meet anyone from that community looking to secure a woodland croft.

There are also crofters in Sutherland who have woodland crofts by virtue of earlier mechanisms for their establishment – by planting up ‘traditional’ crofts for example. However they have been arrived at, we look forward to meeting occupiers of existing woodland crofts, as well those who aspire to one.

We are also keen to talk to private landowners who – as in the visionary example from Edderton above – recognize the benefits to both themselves and their communities of this new model of woodland tenure.

We’ll be on the Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust stand so come and see us on Saturday!