By Claire Elliot And Paula Murray For The Scottish Daily Mail
01:39 29 Jun 2024, updated 02:17 29 Jun 2024
A millionaire financier plans to buy a massive Highland estate complete with four islands – and hand it to a community group in an extraordinary act of generosity.
Ian Wace is in the process of securing the Badentarbat Estate by Achiltibuie, near Ullapool, Ross and Cromarty.
Considered by some to be an inspiration for the cult 1970s horror film The Wicker Man, Badentarbat is on the market for £2,750,000 and covers a ‘significant portion of the Coigach peninsula’.
Mr Wace has told the Coigach Community Development Company (CCDC) the estate will be gifted to the group once the sale is complete. Badentarbat is home to around 70 crofts plus four small islands which are part of the Summer Isles group.
Summerisle was the fictional location of The Wicker Man, which was wrongly thought by many movie fans to be set in the Wester Ross archipelago. In fact, it was shot in Galloway and Plockton.
Residents local to Badentarbat have now voted to support the move, in a packed community meeting on Thursday.
Mr Wace bought nearby Tanera Mòr, the largest of the Summer Isles, in 2017.
A spokesman for Mr Wace said of the latest purchase yesterday: ‘It all happened very quickly and was approved by the community in Achiltibuie last night. Ian wanted to do something for the community. Tanera is opposite the community and he’s invested a lot on the island, rebuilding the community there. There are grants available from the Scottish Government for a community buy-out but it is a lengthy, competitive process. Ian stepped in to speed up the process. It’s all done and dusted.’
According to the Scotsman, Adam Blaker, chief executive of Summer Isles Enterprises (SIE) which runs Tanera Mòr, represented the philanthropist at Thursday night’s meeting.
He told the locals: ‘Ian was only interested in buying the estate if he could gift the crofting land. It has been an extremely rapid process. This is about doing something meaningful.
‘It gives people in the community the opportunity to own their own property and to govern their own decisions. People will see and feel the benefit of this for generations to come.’
The estate is one of two main ones on the peninsula and has been owned by the same family for around half a century.
Mr Wace is worth around £800million according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
Richard Williams, chairman of CCDC, said: ‘We are hugely grateful to Ian Wace for enabling this incredible opportunity for the community.’
