West Highland Free Press

Established in 1972 in the Scottish Highlands, the West Highland Free Press is a left-leaning weekly newspaper dedicated to serving its local community. Located in Broadford on the Isle of Skye, it covers news and events from the Isle of Skye, Wester Ross, and the Outer Hebrides, fulfilling the role of a typical local newspaper.

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DR CALUM MACLEOD: Scrap the two-child benefit cap

3 weeks ago | whfp.com | Michael Russell

In the middle of Mental Health Awareness Week, Dr Calum MacLeod of the Mental Health Foundation stresses the importance of preventative spending and changes to the benefit system…This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week celebrates the pivotal roles that our communities of place and of interest play in protecting peoples’ mental health.
Donnie Martin Stand fundraiser

1 month ago | whfp.com | Michael Russell

Lochalsh and Skye Housing Association held a charity walk from Kilmarie to Sligachan last Saturday in memory of Donnie Martin and to raise money for the new Skye Camanachd stand that has been named after him. A spokesman for the housing association told the Free Press: “We had 20 walkers for the sponsored walk in very mixed weather conditions in memory of Donnie who worked for us for many years.
RAISING A GLASS: Plans lodged for revival of 200-year-old Skye distillery

1 month ago | whfp.com | Keith MacKenzie

Ambitious plans have been unveiled to revive an historic whisky distillery on Skye, creating 26 new jobs, a visitor centre and staff accommodation. Séamus Ó Baoighill and Seumas Gorman hope to develop the distillery in Broadford, where they currently run a small-scale gin production business.
PITCH PERFECT: Broadford sports campus nets £150,000

2 months ago | whfp.com | Keith MacKenzie

Plans to build new community sports facilities in south Skye have been boosted by an £150,000 award from Sportscotland. Sports clubs and community facilities across Scotland will benefit from £450,000 of investment from sportscotland’s Sport Facilities Fund to local partners, including South Skye Community CampusThe award will help a new synthetic pitch to be built in Broadford, adding to the facilities that will be part of the brand new primary school for the village.
NORRIE T MACDONALD: For the Hebrides, wind power can be our ‘Shetland’ moment

Feb 27, 2025 | whfp.com | Keith MacKenzie

There is a notion around these parts, indeed any part of the Highlands and Islands (and wider Scotland?) destined to be ‘home’ to multi-billion pound investment by the renewables industry, that significant local benefit is a ‘given’. The fact that nothing could be further from the truth is what gives objectors the traction that they need to attempt to disrupt, and rightly so. For any significant, long-term benefit to be forthcoming; negotiation is crucial.
SPEED CONCERNS: NC 500 traffic means road safety measures are ‘urgent’ at Shieldaig

Feb 27, 2025 | whfp.com | Keith MacKenzie

A Wester Ross community is calling for urgent road safety improvements amid growing traffic volumes generated by the North Coast 500. Shieldaig Community Council say there have been several near misses for pedestrians, including a child being struck by a car mirror, and are now urging action from Highland Council before something more serious occurs. The potential dangers posed to local school children who have to cross the busy A896 has been top of the community council’s agenda for some time.
FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE: Skye man to take his MS battle to Mexico

Feb 19, 2025 | whfp.com | Keith MacKenzie

A Skye man, whose life “was turned upside down” by a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, is set to undergo medical treatment in Mexico in a bid to secure a fighting chance in his battle with the debilitating condition. James Coull, from Harlosh, plans to fly to Mexico in May to undergo Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation – a chemotherapy treatment designed to help halt disease progression in neurologic autoimmune diseases, such as MS, for which there is no current cure.
WORKERS’ CAMP: Group warns Broadford development will affect otters

Feb 14, 2025 | whfp.com | Keith MacKenzie

A children’s environmental group based in Broadford on Skye has found that at least 10 species of mammals and birds will be affected by plans to build a workers’ camp on the outskirts of the village.
READER'S COMMENT: ‘High-end’ Gaelic drama was robotic and clichéd

Feb 12, 2025 | whfp.com | Keith MacKenzie

Now that the fourth and final episode of the BBC Alba mini series ‘An t-Eilean’ has aired, many readers will be wondering how £4 million couldn’t buy something better. Was the script produced by Artificial Intelligence? That might explain the embarrassing catalogue of clichés and robotic dialogue relieved by drone views of sand and sea. What was presented as substantial, “high-end Gaelic drama” was just thin gruel. Gaelic with all the Gaelic bits taken out.
TOBAR AN DUALCHAIS: Memories of Glendale, Nova Scotia in 1963

Jan 29, 2025 | whfp.com | Keith MacKenzie

Dr John Shaw is one of the worlds’ foremost scholars of Gaelic oral traditions and is an Honorary Fellow in Celtic and Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University. Following encouragement from John Lorne Campbell during his visit to Canna in 1961, John went on to conduct extensive fieldwork research into Nova Scotia’s rich Gaelic culture.