Canna community welcomes housing funding boost

The cash from SSE’s Highland Sustainable Development Fund and the National Trust for Scotland will allow tiny Canna to build some much needed new homes to safeguard its housing stock for the future.

With a population of only 20, Canna is the most fragile of Lochaber’s Small Isles, and the community have set themselves the ambitious goal of increasing the number of residents by at least 50 per cent in the net decade.

Building these three new affordable homes is a major step toward that goal.

The National Trust for Scotland owns the entire 4.4 square miles of the tiny island, and supports the island’s community development trust regularly in its many projects aimed at improving life on Canna. 

This has included a community shop, harbour and renewable energy generation via wind and solar power.

The three family-sized units will be the first purpose-built affordable homes on the island, to be owned and managed by Canna’s community development trust.

With £850,000 already secured from the Scottish Government’s Rural and Islands Housing Fund, the project now has all the cash it needs to progress to construction.