"it's not a case of what would you like or what's possible - it's what's needed."
Part Three of a podcast by Off the Leash's Charlie Moores made to support the Langholm Initiative, the award-winning community development trust for Eskdale, and a community buy out that is aiming to repurpose a former grouse moor owned by Buccleuch Estates into the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve.
Charlie explained more about the background to the buyout in the introduction to Part One and discussed the incredibly strong community in Langholm in Part Two: it is an absolutely fascinating and inspiring story that is centred around Eskdale and the tightly-knit community of Langholm, a burgh in Dumfries and Galloway just 20 miles north of Carlisle, and the Duke of Buccleuch, one of the richest men in the UK who owns a staggering 217,000 acres of moorland, farms and forestry - including Langholm Moor and the Tarras Valley.
Back in May 2019, Buccleuch Estates announced a decision to sell 25,000 acres of Langholm Moor and the Tarras Valley. Local interest in buying at least some of the land grew and the Langholm initiative launched a fundraising campaign on behalf of the community.
'The Impossible Dream' as it was termed initially, took off. In just six months the campaign attracted £3.8m in grants and funding, including a crowd funder which raised over £200,000 - and the community now legally owns 5,200 acres of land which includes upland moor, ancient woodland, meadows, peatlands and a river valley.
A second fundraiser has now been set up to buy an additional 5000 acres. The money has to be raised by May 2022 or the land could be put up for sale on the open market....and a chance to manage a whopping 10,000 acres could be lost. Would he like to come to Langholm, Charlie was asked, to make a podcast to help 'spread the word'? Would he ever...
In Part One, Charlie visited the reserve with Tarras Valley Estate Manager Jenny Barlow and Development Manager Angela Williams; in Part Two he spoke with Langholm residents, Margaret Pool, Chair of Langholm Initiative, and Mairi Telford-Jammeh, a member of the Langholm Executive, and in Part Three he is talking with Kevin Cumming, who in 2019 was working for the Langholm Initiative and managing the Wild Eskdale project which aimed to promote eco-tourism in the area as well as provide outdoor education for the local community.
For Charlie, Kevin was the 'face' of the buyout and it's likely that many of us were introduced to the details and purpose of the buyout through an articulate and thorough blog he wrote for Mark Avery's website in Dec 2019. Fortunately, Kevin happened to come into the Langholm Initiative office just as Charlie was finishing talking with Margaret and Mairi. He looked a little - er, weary (for a very good reason as he explains in the conversation) but immediately agreed to a chat before heading home. He is a remarkable individual - softly spoken with a core of steel if you like...
Charlie began the conversation by asking Kevin to both explain the links between the Langholm Initiative, Wild Eskdale, and the Tarras Valley nature reserve and to go back to the beginning when the opportunity to buy the land had first arisen...
Go Fund me Crowd Funder (Community Buyout 2)
Tarras Valley Nature Reserve Twitter feed
YouTube Tarras Valley Live Event (December 1st)
Mark Avery Guest Blog | Langholm Moor Community Buyout by Kevin Cumming
