A row over a Sunday golf ban has encouraged the biggest number of candidates for 40 years to stand in elections for a Western Isles community landlord.
Usually the ballot is a low key affair but this time some 22 hopefuls have thrown their hats into the ring to become a board member of the Stornoway Trust.
Five seats are vacant for the organisation which covers nearly half the population of the Western Isles.
The Stornoway Trust owns the Stornoway golf course but refuses to relax a clause in the lease to the local club forbidding teeing off on the Sabbath.
Since the parkland course was built about 65 years ago, golf has never been played, reflecting the historic local island values of observing the Sabbath.
However, the row is expected to be back on the agenda within months – depending on the way locals cast their vote.
Many hopefuls have strong views on opposing sides of the debate.
Another controversy involves a David and Goliath battle over crofters’ rights to use their own rough pasture to build a community wind farm.
The trust angered crofters by awarding French government owned energy giant EDF a 70-year lease on the land.
Meanwhile, only three women have put their names forward for the contest despite a recent outcry that local authority Western Isles Council has no female representation in its decision making processes.
The Stornoway Trust was created as a community body in 1923 when landlord Lord Leverhulme gifted 69,000 acres of land to the people.
The estate stretches between North Tolsta, Newmarket, Point and part of North Lochs.