The Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust (IGHT) is looking for a new Business Manager and a Property Officer to work alongside the trust and the local community to continue the exciting development work on the island.

Six years ago, the community of Gigha – aka God’s Island, lying a 20minute ferry-ride off the Kintyre peninsula, bought out their island – well, not quite. For some inexplicable reason, in the deal financed by Highlands and Islands Enterprise through the Scottish Land Fund, the owner Derek Holt was allowed to retain the most profitable elements of the island’s assets – the main farm and the fish farm.

However,setting aside the vagaries of the relationships between private profit and public money, six years on the island is thriving.

Many of those who had left the island have returned and, together with residents and a lively spectrum of newcomers, they have raised the population beyond 150. This reverses a decline that was damaging the community’s sustainability. The island’s primary school roll has also jumped from 6 to 23 pupils.

Argyll & Bute Council Leader, Dick Walsh says: ‘The position of business manager lies at the heart of the ongoing success of the community and is a fantastic opportunity for someone looking to make a real difference. It also has the added benefit of being based in one of the most scenic parts of the country.

‘The Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust has done an incredible job since the community buy out in 2002 and has come on leaps on bounds since then, creating employment on the island, new businesses and , with the help of external funders, their very own wind farm. The Trust has also contributed to more affordable housing being built on the island after selling land to Fyne Homes.

‘I wish the islanders and the trust every success in filling these two important job vacancies and look forward to hearing of further development in the future’.

The Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust paid just over £4 million to purchase the island from the laird in 2002. This was made up of a grant from the Scottish Land Fund of £3.5m and a Highlands and Islands Enterprise grant of £500,000.

Both grants were the biggest ever awarded at that time for such a venture and £1 million of the money had to be paid back by the Trust to the Scottish Land Fund as a condition of the grant.

This was achieved in 2004 through the hard work and determination of the community, by selling Achamore House and by setting up a number of other money making ventures, including Gigha Whisky and Gigha Tartan.

The beautiful little island with the famous Achamore Gardens Gigha had been continuously inhabited since prehistoric times. It is said to have played an important role during the Gaelic Kingdom of Dalriada and is the ancestral home of Clan MacNeill. It fell under the control of the Norsemen and the Lords of the Isles and later was incorporated into modern Scotland, seeing a variety of conflicts during the medieval period.

It has a lively history with landowners. It’s main development from which it still benefits – as with the gardens -  largely comes from the benevolent paternalism  of the Horlick family (and yes, it is the drinkable Horlicks we’re talking about).

It then saw a period under Malcolm Potier, a businessman who had made his money in Glasgow’s construction industry and spent a lot of it in buying and developing Gigha. His financial and personal life then imploded. This led to the sale of the island to Derek Holt and produced a sequence of bizarre circumstances some of which led to Potier’s jailing in Australia where he remains incarcerated.

The island runs an imaginative series of events for the community and for a wider audience. The lucky eventual appointees to these posts will have plenty of support for the developments their respective responsibilities require.

The photograph above is licensed under Creative Commons and shows the Ogham Stone on Gigha, looking across the sound towards Kintyre.