What we want to do

Orbost Farmhouse is a 5 bedroom property, which has been empty for over 4 years. Following our purchase of it with support from the Scottish Land Fund and Highland and Island Enterprise, we plan to renovate the building and divide it into 2 affordable long term rentals: 1* 2 bedroom and 1* 3 bedroom.  We are a few weeks from submitting our planning application. Dunvegan Community Trust has funded RIBA stage 3 (up to and including Planning submission) and the planning submission fee from reserves and fundraising. We are seeking funding for:

RIBA stage 4 - Technical drawings, Quantity Surveying, Structural Engineering, Project management and Building Warrant Submission - £24,300

Our next phase will be seeking funding for RIBA stage 5 Construction - £338,625 (This is an estimate at this stage, which we expect to increase.)

Why our project is important

Dunvegan has the potential to be a thriving hub of the Northwest of Skye, but the lack of housing affordable to the local wage is holding it back, and costing us community cohesion, economic vitality, and a sustainable future. As in much of the Highlands and Islands, the private, long term rental market has all but disappeared, and many homes have been lost to residential occupancy and moved into the commercial sector as short term lets.  These coupled with high-even-for-Skye house and land prices, has resulted in an alarming drop in the number of children and young people living in our area over the last 20 years. In the absence of a functional private rental market, Community Owned housing with local allocation policies diversify the housing available and enable a balanced demographic of people to build their lives here. Our project strongly aligns with Skye and Raasay Futures Pan in terms of Strengthening Communities. Our project has the support of the Highland council and features in the Strategic Housing Investment Plan 2025-2030.

Impact and Outcomes

Our project will provide long term affordable housing to 2 households - while modest, it is a first step towards improving the diversity of housing available in the Northwest. 

Our project will bring a long-term empty and deteriorating building back into habitation. 

Milestones

We completed our business planning and feasibility with the Communities Housing Trust, in support of our successful Scottish Land fund bid. We had positive feedback from our Pre Planning Application, and will be submitting our Planning application in the next few weeks. Having self funded RIBA stage 3, our next steps will be securing £24,300 funding for the technical phase. We have had an EOI approved by the Rural and Island Housing Fund, and may be subject to their funding windows to progress to the construction phase. 

We conducted an asset specific survey to ask our members whether we should purchase this property for renovation into 2 affordable lets, and of the 90 responses, 93% said yes, with the caveat that they be long term rentals for the benefit of people with connections to the local area through family or work.

We also engaged the Communities Housing Trust in 2025 to deliver their trio of Housing need surveys in our community. The surveys garnered a good response rate, and painted a stark picture of the housing need in our area. They identified the need for an additional 25 affordable homes in Dunvegan, to keep up with current demand, and that this would need to be regularly reviewed. There is also a real sense of the waste of properties sitting vacant when housing need is so acute. 83% of respondents thought more should be done to bring empty homes into Community Ownership for affordable housing.