A rock and a hard place Plan for new salmon farm splits Hebridean islanders

On the tiny Hebridean island of Gigha, a 20-minute ferry hop from the Scottish mainland, Marion Stevenson drives along the only main road, pointing out white beaches and "wilderness paths".

- Karen McVeigh

 The Isle of Gigha Heritage Trust recently built 14 miles of the paths to encourage eco-tourism. A site in the north of the seven-milelong island has been awarded "dark skies" status-on a clear night you'll see the Milky Way.

The west coast is undeveloped, with just a handful of houses, cliffs and stunning views across the sea to Jura and Islay. It is here that Bakkafrost, a Faroese salmon firm, proposes siting eight 160-metrewide cages and a feed barge.

"It will be about 100 metres out to sea," says Stevenson, who is the treasurer of Gigha community council but stresses she does not speak for them. "There is nothing man-made. The Vikings on Gigha looked at the same view - can't they just leave it this way?"

On this speck of land three miles west of the Kintyre peninsula, fish farming has brought wellpaid employment and even a few much-needed newcomers.

But Bakkafrost's plan to site a third farm here has divided the community-owned island.

Despite the promise of five new jobs a significant number among a population of just 170 - a survey by the community council, which is a statutory consultee to all planning applications, found 61% of inhabitants opposed the farm and 39% were in favour.

Concerns over the proposed site, on this Hebridean island in Argyll and Bute are not restricted to a spoiled view.

John Aitchison, chair of Friends of the Sound of Jura, a conservation charity, believes warming seas could be posing a bigger threat to salmon welfare in farms in southern and western Scotland than is acknowledged.

Examination of regional differences in mortalities, from the Scottish government's latest data on survival rates, "rang alarm bells" for him, he says. "South and west Scotland had worse mortality than average, with lower mortalities further north."