- Are there signs that population decline on your island is beginning to turn around?
- Is your island (or your particular local island community, or a particular age group) beginning to grow again?
- Have you observed more jobs being created, more young people and families choosing to return or settle, more births, an increase in the school roll, more housing becoming available, or positive impacts of a community land buy-out?
- Do you know examples of good policy or local action that is contributing to stemming, even reversing population decline?
- Would you like to share your experience with other islanders and with island policy-makers?
Between June and August 2019, the Islands Revival project is collecting observations of population turnaround from across the Scottish islands, as well as other islands in Europe and beyond, and sharing them through a blog. The contributions will highlight positive change on islands, wherever it is happening, to inform local action and island policy, from the local to the national levels.
The project comes at an important time for Scottish islands, as the Scottish Government draws up the National Islands Plan, to be presented to Parliament in October of this year. Our blog is an opportunity for island communities to share positive trends that will give greater insight to the Scottish Government’s Islands Team, and especially how the Islands Plan can encourage and invest in such developments.
The blog will form the basis of a workshop at the end of August, to facilitate discussion between communities, local and Scottish Government, island businesses and international experts, to develop recommendations for how policy can best support sustainable island repopulation.
If you have a positive story about population turnaround on your island, or concrete examples of policy and action that can boost island populations, please consider contributing to the Islands Revival blog. For questions about the process, please contact ruth.wilson@hutton.ac.uk.