When the Rio Tinto Aluminium bid was made, albeit unsuccessfully, we were given every encouragement by the Scottish Government to continue to engage with the new owner GFG Alliance which, in return for Government support, had made a formal Undertaking to complete a land transaction with the East Lochaber Community Trust. Over the years, many attempts have been made to take this forward, which has proven extremely difficult as GFG Alliance appears to continually need to refinance.

We believe that we still have the support of the Scottish Government in holding the GFG Alliance to the terms of the Undertaking made with them and we seek to reconfirm that.

A fundamental part of our approach is the knowledge that the GFG Alliance does not need to own the land through Jahama Highland Estates in order to allow Alvance to smelt aluminium, because they have the water rights over the entire catchments through Westminster legislation. These vast catchments include several private owners that may generate hydropower providing the water is returned to the catchment.  Given that the water rights are vested in the smelting company’s power stations, that party does not need to hold the land.  Community ownership of the land would therefore not threaten the Smelter’s operation and we believe that should be the favoured tenure for generations to come.