Approaching the wind-buffeted island of Tiree after a four-hour ferry journey, visitors and residents alike are greeted by the sight of Tilley – the community-owned wind turbine that rises fifty metres above the Atlantic. More than a landmark, Tilley has become a symbol of what happens when a community takes its future into its own hands.

“We are very lucky,” says Phyl Meyer, Chief Officer of Tiree Community Development Trust (Urras Thiriodh). “We’ve got a wind turbine right now that is providing the vast majority of funding, which allows my staff and I to be here to do all of these things and to professionally run projects and services.” 

Like many rural and island communities, Tiree’s population has been declining for many years, as people move to the mainland to look for jobs, housing and other opportunities they couldn’t find on the island. Local people became increasingly worried about the sustainability of the school, and the risk of a tipping point for further population decline. 

“There are families who are considering leaving the island because of the lack of childcare,” says Meyer. “And if we lose those families, it’s the impact of their jobs not being filled anymore, and how we replace them, less kids in the school, potential threats to the funding for that, etc. It’s all interconnected and if one domino falls over, another domino falls and another. We spend a lot of our time worrying about how we head off the cascading dominoes.”

In 2006 a group of local people came together to take the future of the island into their own hands, based on the belief that the community needed to generate its own income to be able to make the investments needed in the community, and set up Tiree Community Development Trust.

Their ambitious plan to harness the powerful natural resource flying over their heads paid off. Managed through the trading arm Tiree Renewable Energy Ltd, Tilley – a 900 kW turbine – has channelled about £4 million back into the community of just 650 people, funding everything from critical infrastructure to essential community services.

When the island’s two main harbours were crumbling, threatening the viability of the local fishing fleet, the Trust led a major regeneration, securing the livelihoods of dozens of families. When the island’s only petrol station faced closure, they built a replacement, sparing residents a two-day trip to the mainland for fuel. They run a community broadband service – recently the only working connection after a major storm – and rescued the village shop, which is now also a post office.

To further nurture local enterprise, they constructed four modern business units, providing permanent space for a hairdresser, art gallery and creative social enterprise, allowing small businesses to thrive where they once struggled for space. Now, with housing being the most urgent need on the island the Trust is driving forward a major project to build affordable community-owned homes. 

Their work goes beyond physical infrastructure. The income from Tilley also funds a full-time youth officer who runs a year-round programme of activities, to make Tiree a vibrant place for children to grow up, a Ranger Service to manage tourism, a home energy efficiency improvement and community advice service, a vital electric community minibus and provides small grants for local groups.

At their core, the Trust is responsive to community needs, building solutions and resilience against the threat of domino effects, where one missing service can collapse the viability of industries, ways of life, and ultimately the community itself. Currently the Trust is working to find a solution to the retirement of the last vet on the island, exploring a community-owned practice to ensure the crofting economy remains viable, and working to develop a solution to the lack of childcare on the island.

Rhoda Meek, Head of Communications and Gaelic, says: “The work that community development trusts do is absolutely vital in places like this. You could argue these are things that should be done from a statutory level, but we are where we are. Our development trusts are vital for healthy communities and to keep economic development going.”

“We’re not just about one project,” she adds. “You’re running a petrol station, a business centre, broadband, youth work and a heritage centre, and you’ve only got a population of 650. It’s a lot.

“Core funding is what’s missing. You can get capital to build something shiny, but you can’t get money to keep it running or pay people properly.”

Networks Behind the Success

But this success of community ownership doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires an equally expert support system. Enter Community Land Scotland (CLS), an intermediary body providing the critical support organisations like the Tiree Trust need. 

More than 500 communities across Scotland have taken ownership of buildings and land, covering over 200,000 hectares.  As the representative body for Scotland’s community landowners CLS underpins that movement by providing specialist advice, peer learning and national advocacy.

“Our strength in Scotland is that breadth and the way organisations work together,” says Linsay Chalmers, Director of Communities & Operations at CLS. “We support emerging and existing community landowners with networking and peer-to-peer learning opportunities.”

When Tiree began tackling its housing crisis – nearly half of homes are empty or used seasonally – CLS helped by arranging visits to Eigg and Knoydart so the Trust could learn directly from peers who had already delivered affordable homes. That exchange of experience saved time, risk and money.

CLS also supported Tiree’s Gaelic work, providing funding for a development project and convening community groups on Raasay to share learning. Rhoda Meek who works on developing Gaelic on the island says: “Gaelic is hugely linked to crofting and to the sea. For those of us whose roots are in Tiree, our grandfathers fished and worked the ground. Crofting and fishing are still a huge part of our local economy – vitally important and completely intertwined with our Gaelic language and culture.”

Other networks and organisations – Development Trusts Association Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) – have also provided invaluable technical and financial support, such as funding their new solar array and upgrading insulation in community buildings.

For the leaders doing this challenging work, the connections forged by these intermediary bodies and the support they provide are a lifeline.

Community Wealth Building in Action

Tilley remains Tiree’s financial backbone, but after major repairs it is uninsurable and nearing the end of its life. As Meyer says: “If that turbine breaks tomorrow, we are not insured for loss of business. There will be a cliff edge that we will fall off without more core funding from the government.”

In response, the Trust is investing in more resilient and scalable solar arrays and exploring a local energy co-op to keep profits circulating locally. The strategy is clear: resilience through community ownership.

The work done by the Tiree Community Development Trust shows what Community Wealth Building looks like in practice. Wealth created locally stays local. Contractors are hired on the island, surpluses fund new services and decisions are made by residents.

It reflects a wider shift – now enshrined in the Community Wealth Building Bill going through Holyrood – to root economic power closer to communities. The Bill would require public bodies to develop local action plans that help generate, circulate and retain wealth within their areas.

For Community Land Scotland and its members, Chalmers says Community Wealth Building “resonates with a lot of communities because it really describes what they’re doing naturally. A lot of our members’ models are about creating wealth and reinvesting that back in their communities.”

Josh Doble, Director of Policy & Advocacy at Community Land Scotland highlights that some members have concerns that the Bill won’t do what it needs to. He says there’s been some discussion about a lack of clarity about what ‘wealth’ means and too much focus on state-led approaches: “There’s a fear that Community Wealth Building becomes too fixated on economics, and doesn’t capture the holistic benefits it can deliver for local communities. There’s a danger of it just becoming government jargon rather than a genuinely transformative way of rewiring the economy. That’s why we want to show that communities are already doing community wealth building, so successful community-led approaches don’t get lost.”

Jill Keegan, Partnerships Manager at Scottish Community Alliance, agrees: “Communities have been doing this for decades. The Bill is an opportunity for government and other stakeholders to make what’s already happening easier and more sustainable.”

Tiree’s story shows that Community Wealth Building isn’t a theory – it’s already happening. It’s being built from the ground up by local people, delivering real results, and filling the gaps where both market and state have struggled to keep rural places alive. What the island needs now is meaningful long term support to enable them to continue meeting the local community’s needs, ensuring life on Tiree remains viable and resilient for future generations.

 

Read more from our series This is Community Wealth Building and what we’re calling for to support Community Wealth Building across Scotland.