Crofting Inquiry - Rannsachadh Croitearchd

How serious is the committee about hearing comments from the crofting counties when there are so few meetings organised The mainland is especially very poorly catered for with meetings in Arisag and Inverness not likly to coverage of the whole of the crofting counties

I quite agree more meetings are needed

The Committee are committed to maintaining the involvement of crofting communities and other members of the public and were keen to re-visit as many areas as possible. However their considerations require to be finalised during March as their final recommendations to Ministers are expected by mid April 2008. This fact, coupled with the potential travel difficulties poor weather conditions bring at this time of the year, it was thought best to limit the number of visits although we have tried to select locations that will allow us to reach as many people as possible in different crofting communities.
The vision paper will be discussed at public meetings but if you are unable to attend any of these and would like to let the Committee know what you think about the issues in this paper please contact us by February 28 either through these forum pages or by mail to FREEPOST, Crofting Inquiry.

With all the out reach/satalite posts that UHI have accross the Highlands why not have a Video confrence meeting from all UHI faciliites cheaper than giving committee members freebe visits accross the area good boost to UHI credibility There are facilities from Mull & Ardnamurchan in the West to Bettyhill and Thurso in the North I am sure that all the smaller Islands have similar facilities and more voices could be heard
Meetings could be held prior to the main video confrence at each centre so that the views of all the areas could be aired to the committee

The Committee is keen to sustain the involvement of crofting communities in the work of the Inquiry and when arranging the details of their winter tour the Committee did consider the possibility of using the UHI video conferencing facilities. However, it was felt that for anyone not able to take part directly in a meeting the best way for their views about the questions posed in the Towards the Future of Crofting paper to be available to the Committee would be for people to submit their responses in writing. We hope people will do that. Responses should be submitted by Thursday 28 February.