Trade body Salmon Scotland is calling for £10 million-a-year in licence fees paid to Crown Estate Scotland to be reinvested in affordable housing to tackle the growing property crisis in rural communities.
Scottish salmon adds more than £220 million a year to the north west Highlands’ economy, directly supporting around 1,000 local jobs and hundreds of suppliers in the region.
Tavish Scott, chief executive of Salmon Scotland, said:
“The Scottish salmon sector employs thousands of people in our most fragile coastal communities.
“The well-paid, year-round jobs we provide are the lifeblood of Highland and island communities. If we were to disappear, so would the jobs, the local schools, the shops, everything that makes island life liveable.
“One of the greatest risks to this way of life is the lack of affordable housing, which is why we’ve been calling on the Scottish Government to ringfence around £10 million of the rent which Crown Estate Scotland receives from salmon farmers to provide housing that enables local working age people to live and work in the town and villages they grew up in.”