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Family sues NTS after claims they were “bullied” off island

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Social experiment has gone wrong says family

Conservation charity the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) is embroiled in a dispute after a family quit living on the tiny NTS-run island of Canna as part of a social experiment.

Gordon and Denise Guthrie are suing the charity after they claimed it failed to fulfil promises to populate the isolated island.

It comes after the only school on the island was closed.

They are wanting reimbursed to the tune of £10,000 which they say is what the move has cost them.

NTS ran an advert last year appealing for people to come live on the island almost as if they could create a utopian ideal.

Encouraged by this promise, the Motherwell family upped sticks and set up home on Canna with their two children – but now the population has dwindled to just 17 people which they say goes against what the NTS promised.

Gordon said: “They [NTS] were starting to go back on what they said about bringing other families. There’s no way we would have moved if we thought our children were going to be the only kids on the island.”

"I felt we were bullied off the island.”

They left this summer and now live in Lesmahagow.

The NTS dismissed the family’s accusations as “unfounded”.

A spokeswoman said the trust would be meeting the Isle of Canna Community Development Trust and other relevant organisations this week to “discuss a strategy for the future development of Canna.”