(Updated below) The Isle of Bute voted today on the proposed community buy out of Rhubodach Forest for the Attenboroughs. Whatever the community decision was to be, it needed 50% of the entire islands voting-age population to vote.
Today But achieved 52.5% with 2737 people voting.
It’s hard to imagine the legwork that getting this size of vote out must have taken. It’s also hard to imagine a 6’3″ Squirrel in Guildford Square in Rothesay – but there it was, part of the inventive all-or-nothing campaign to attract and remind voters.
It’s not been without its unanticipated hitches.
at the time the Community ballot papers were being issued, thre was an unfortunate story in the island newspaper, The Buteman – featuring the negativity of a couple of naysayers – to whom we promptly gave a double-barrelled blast for their enfeebled preference for doing nothing.
The initiative’s organising team was quick to get a story in the following issue of The Buteman, accounting accurately for the weight of support for the proposal across the island.
But the damage was done.
Several voters had binned their ballot papers, their confidence undermined by the ‘concerns’ of what had never been anything other than a minute minority. When sanity reasserted itself and they wished to vote, they no longer had the means.
So the project team had to tour the island replacing ballot papers and making sure that each had a unique number to defend against any unlikely worries about double voting.
It’s all been worth it now.
The final firework of community confidence is that 94% of the vote was YES. That sends a challenge to the rest of Argyll – to match the ambition and the drive in Bute to achieve a degree of self-determination through this multi-faceted initiative with the capacity to underwrite a host of sustainabilities.
The count took forever. There were so many envelopes that opening them took more time than the count itself.
Already this initiative has attracted more national media attention than Bute has experienced cumulatively in several years.
The day of the launch of the Community Ballot saw major features in The Herald and in the Daily Mail; and in every television newscast on BBC Scotland throughout the day.
Tonight there will be news on BBC and STV television news; and two journalists from The Times were on Bute for the count – with a piece due in that paper tomorrow (13th February).
Food for the tooth-suckers?
- Update 13th February: Congratulations from Jim Mather, MSP
Argyll and Bute’s MSP, Jim Mather says: ‘I am really delighted to learn that in this, the largest ever community buy-out exercise in Scotland, the voters of Bute have given a massive boost to that proposal with more than 2,700 Brandanes voting and of that number 93% being in favour of the proposed buy-out.
This is a defining moment for local confidence and cohesion for the Isle of Bute and I am happy to congratulate them and the Bute Community Land Company who brought together the bid for this successful outcome.
‘This is not an end in itself but rather the start of a huge project because there is valuable work to be done now to bring this to fruition.
‘Bute has huge potential and this step can do a great deal to realise and build on the past and look confidently to the future.
‘Like others I can see today’s news as a key means of attracting new generations of visitors to this attractive Clyde destination.’
- Update 14th February: Congratulations from Alan Reid MP
Argyll and Bute’s MP, Alan Reid says: ‘I congratulate the islanders of Bute and Bute Community Land Company on a decisive vote in favour of the community purchase of Rhubodach Forest – the largest community buy-out so far.
“There is still a great deal of work to be done and I offer my full support to BCLC in their efforts to raise the remainder of the cash required to buy the forest.
“Owning their own forest will give islanders tremendous opportunities to enhance this beautiful part of the island. They will be able to create jobs for local people, recreational facilities for tourists and educational facilities for children.”