Projects in the Highlands and islands are among those at the heart of a “new strategy” for the National Trust for Scotland, as the conservation charity builds up to its centenary year.
The Trust has unveiled a commitment to become carbon negative by its 100th birthday in 2031, and an intention to invest £100 million over the next ten years to help it achieve its ambitious programme.
If its targets are achieved, more than six million people a year will be welcomed to its sites – which include Glencoe, the Culloden battlefield and the Mar Lodge Estate in the Cairngorms – by 2032.
The charity hopes to drive the growth by spending £38 million on a number of projects around the country over the next three years.
They include the new visitor facilities being built at Corrieshalloch Gorge near Ullapool, which will improve access to one of the UK’s most spectacular gorges – and the nerve-shredding suspension bridge that crosses it.
The Trust is also improving infrastructure on the dramatic island of Staffa, off the western coast of Mull, and developing new facilities on the Isle of Canna in partnership with the community that lives there.
To help deliver its decade-long vision, the charity is currently recruiting for around 300 seasonal and permanent roles.
Philip Long, chief executive of the National Trust for Scotland, said: “Everyone can benefit from Scotland’s heritage and from the work of the Trust, and in the years ahead we want to involve as many people as possible in this.
“Our new strategy is a response to all that our charity has achieved over its long history, and to the current health, economic and environmental challenges which affect everyone.
“In creating our new strategy we’ve set out a framework that charts our ambitions for the Trust’s tenth decade, describing our intended achievements: from becoming carbon negative by 2031, through to championing Scotland’s heritage for everyone, restoring and protecting habitats, historic buildings and landscapes and uncovering and sharing more of our nation’s stories to a larger and more diverse audience of six million annual visitors.
“We’re also recruiting colleagues to bring even more experience to our dedicated and passionate team throughout the country, to allow us to realise these ambitions.”
To read more about the strategy, named Nature, Beauty & Heritage for Everyone, click the link here.