Future looks bright as Assynt Foundation set to sign landmark agreement with Woodland Trust and hotel company takes over Glencanisp Lodge
The Assynt Foundation has announced that it is about to cement a landmark partnership with the Woodland Trust.
The Foundation, which is celebrating 20 years of community ownership of the 44,000-acre Glencanisp and Drumrunie Estates, will sign a final agreement with the Trust next month.
The two organisations will work together to develop and implement a 30-year landscape scale management plan for the estates, including the regeneration and creation of native woodland.
The partnership will be funded from both public and private sources.
Chairman of the Assynt Foundation Lewis MacAskill said: “The final agreement should be signed in March and it is hugely exciting. We don’t think anything quite like this has happened on this scale across Scottish community-owned projects.”
As first revealed in the Northern times in October, this is not the only ground-breaking partnership the foundation, which has struggled to keep afloat financially, has forged.
It has entered into a collaboration with hotelier Nick Dent of Original Hotels which will see the 14-bedroom Glencanisp Lodge, at the heart of the estate, restored and opened as a hotel in January 2026.
The move will create up to 20 year-round jobs.
Mr MacAskill said: “Nick Dent is going to carry out a full refurbishment of the lodge which needs money spent on it that we in the Assynt Foundation do not have.
“He is bringing all the expertise and knowledge that we don’t have.”
The refurbishment plan includes converting several old outhouse buildings around the lodge into staff accommodation and a launderette.
Mr MacAskill continued: “We feel we are coming out of the shadows ….20 years after the Assynt Foundation was started, we feel much more positive about the future. For us, the current and future strategy is about creating partnerships.
“We have looked strategically for partners who can help the foundation to move forward, people with the necessary skills whether it is Woodland Trust for sustainable land management, or Nick Dent for hospitality.”
