'Massive blow' to Kingussie after lottery money is lost
Major community plans to regenerate part of the former Highland Folk Museum site in Kingussie have hit the buffers with £85,000 pledged in public funds also being lost.
Hopes of acquiring the former telephone exchange by Pitmain Lodge to transform it into a town hub and cinema have been dashed.
The failure of the project has been described as a 'massive blow to Kingussie' by the campaigners who have worked for the past decade to try and return the buildings into use.
It has emerged that the new owners of the Am Fasgadh site who recently acquired the home of the museum and two associated buildings are only in a position to lease the telephone exchange at this time.
The main funders the National Lottery backed Scottish Land Fund will only provide grants to help develop community owned assets.
Lydie Bocquillon, Am Fasgadh Regeneration Company spokeswoman, said: "It is a massive disappointment for us and for the town.
"It would have been an amazing asset for the town and just at a time when it is so badly needed.
"But the project cannot now go ahead because as it turns out the building is not actually for sale as we had believed.
"The new owners are only offering it for lease but the Scottish Land Fund does not rent; it does not grant money to tenants.
"We would have to own the building to secure the £85,000 they had pledged and then to go for the other monies we had hoped to raise.
"We were all ready to go for it, with a brilliant design for our multi-space community hub and cinema prepared voluntarily by local company Adapt.
"Dez Jones did so much work for us for nothing because like us he believed in the project.
"Years of hard work by the company and especially Liz Duncan, who put in countless hours preparing our brilliant application to the SLF, have come to nothing.
"I have to admit we're all feeling very deflated at the moment."
At one stage in the project it had been understood that the ex-Am Fasgadh buildings on the corner of Duke Street and Spey Street would be handed over by owners Highland Council for £1.
They comprise Pitmain Lodge, McRobert House and the old telephone exchange.
But the local authority had always stressed it could only do this once an up and running project was fully on the go.
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The plans to transform the museum site took much longer than initially hoped and eventually the council put the properties and associated land on the open market for offers over £230,000.
It was bought towards the end of last year by Edinburgh-based Andy and Cath Richards, to create a new home at Pitmain Lodge.
They had said there might be an opportunity for a community use at the old exchange.
The couple said in a statement to the Strathy: "We took ownership of the site in late October. Since then, we have been focussed almost entirely on work to renovate Pitmain Lodge which will be our family home.
"Unsurprisingly, we have yet to explore the full range of options for the telephone exchange which may include sale, leasing or other uses.
"Although we are very supportive of the ARC's aspiration to find a permanent home for the community cinema, we do not wish to rush into a decision to sell the building which the tight timeline of the Scottish Land Fund Grant would force us to do in this instance."
Any sale would have had to be secured and approved so funds could be allotted by the end of March in accordance with SLF rules but it had become obvious to both parties that there simply was not enough time.
A Scottish Land Fund spokesperson said: "ARC Highland was awarded £85,000 in November 2020 to purchase the Old Telephone Exchange in Kingussie, a store of the former Highland Folk Museum and to provide space for a bike hub social enterprise.
"The awarding of this funding was made to support the acquisition of the property, in line with SLF guidelines, and relies on this purchase going ahead as planned."
Mrs Bocquillon responded: "That's the rules and we have to accept them. Of course we will not give up on the idea of a community cinema, at least, but we will have to find somewhere big enough, central enough and feasible enough and that job starts now.
"We're not giving up.
"At least we have beautiful allotments to show for our campaign. They have already been enjoyed by so many for some years now on land which certainly would have been lost to the community but for ARC."
