Sir,

Many times we read about about young or budding crofters stating that there are not enough crofts to cater for them, and that more are needed.

Where is the reasoning for this as in my district many crofts lie unused, and the aspiring crofters rather spend their money buying fancy vehicles or going on holidays than getting onto the crofting ladder!

Yet there is another side to the equation. There are older people that are crofters or so called crofters that have never met the 'has been' crofter , they are gobbling up the tenancies with urban money, people that have expired their allotted span and are on the slippery slope, they might kid themselves they are still capable of working a croft but time is not on their side!

What is the Crofting Commission doing to control this? Like always, nothing, that has been always their role.

What is the Scottish Government doing? Again nothing. It might look rosey at election time to bray about looking to the future to help the aspiring.

I live on a Scottish Ministers Estate, and the young factor finds that the two Government departments have not a frictionless relation – one goes one way the other the opposite.

We crofters were given an opportunity to become crofter when Colin Kennedy was the chair of the Crofting Commission, but alas that was not to be as the Government didn’t want the crofter to unburden himself from being a vassel of the state, so Kennedy had to go and a 'tame' committee put into place!

The future is not bright for crofting in the sense that its role of being a conduit for cattle and sheep into the food chain is very bleak – those of my generation have held onto the tenancies for too long, those of us who had families have never passed on the tenancies, still hanging on well into their eighties because of EU subsidies, ruling the roost with stupid outdated practices. I may not be right but I am never wrong!!

So we have an unbalanced society of young and old.

Fear gun mach gun bean gun leanabh og, sannt seach sagairt

Angus A Macdonald,

Balivanich,

Benbecula