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Scotland’s richest man’s £600,000 loan to Strathnaver Museum saves attraction from crisis

land reform Scottish estates
Anders Povlsen's loan has kept the museum on track to reopen next year.

A conservation organisation headed by multi-millionaire Anders Povlsen has stepped up to keep a popular far north coast visitor attraction on track to re-open as scheduled in March of next year.

Strathnaver Museum in Bettyhill, near Tongue, is in the throes of a £2.3 million makeover, which features a new annexe and restoration of the historic B-listed building.

Work started a year ago last September but the project was thrown into jeopardy when a complex anomaly emerged in the title deeds.

That placed the ownership of the museum in doubt, which affected the ability of directors to secure key funding such as support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Wildland Limited, the conservation company owned by Mr Povlsen, agreed to provide an interest-free unsecured loan of more than £600,000 to the directors of the charity that run the museum.

‘Enormously grateful for support of fellow trustees’

This saw them through while the latter worked to resolve the title deeds issue to the satisfaction of Tain Sheriff Court officers.

The work has meanwhile continued unaffected and the museum remains on schedule to re-open in March.

Strathnaver Museum chairman Tommy Mackay said: “The trustees had been unaware that a clerical oversight made decades ago meant that title to the museum was still registered in the names of its original community trustees and not that of Strathnaver Museum Ltd.

Aerial view of Strathnaver Museum.

“I am enormously grateful for the support of fellow trustees who have managed to resolve the title issue so quickly and to the full satisfaction of legal officers and our core funders.

“The team were particularly concerned that any delay to the ongoing project would have had major repercussions on project delivery due to the unprecedented rise in material costs and the short-term availability of some funding sources.”

Museum’s passion gives backers confidence

Mr Mackay also paid tribute to Wildland’s involvement without which he said there would inevitably been a hold-up in the work programme.

He said: “Without this comfort, we would not be where we are today and may even have had to shelve the much-needed refurbishment project indefinitely,”

Tim Kirkwood chief executive officer of Wildland said: “They were in an extremely difficult position, but their diligence and passion for the project quickly gave us all the confidence we needed to do what we could to help carry them and their contractors over an extremely tricky period.”

Thurso-based O’Brien Construction Ltd are nearing completion of the work on site with new interpretation due to be installed towards the end of next month.

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