Some of you will know that the Trust has put together a vet practice working group to tackle some of the challenges around recruiting a new vet and ensuring they have the right premises available to operate in.
With Anne and Mark due to retire at some point next year, the island faces the very real possibility that it might not be able to attract an incoming vet. With recruitment challenges across the country and the complexity involved in setting up and operating in Tiree, the group – and the Trust – has been looking at both accommodation and a suitable practice space as two key barriers that we can at least partially address.
In particular, the group has been focussed on the vet practice element. This is because funding to support tied housing is a challenge in the current economic climate. Many of you will know that Archie John has helpfully offered both a practice space and accommodation for Anne and Mark since they arrived, but this was always billed as a temporary measure, and in many ways is not the ideal solution moving forward.
A purpose-built vet practice would go some way to attracting a new vet and ensuring they can get started with minimum fuss, along with ensuring compliance with relevant legislation due to be introduced soon.
TRD has helpfully offered a commercial space at the Rural Centre which might be suitable for a practice space going forward. Given their remit as an organisation and the Rural Centre’s central location on the island, we feel this is an option worth exploring.
The next step is to undertake some feasibility work to investigate what changes would be required to transform the space into a high-quality vet practice, and how much this will cost.
With an architect-led design team now in place, this work is underway. Our architect visited Tiree in November to speak with Anne and Mark, and to look at both the current practice and the proposed new space at the Rural Centre.
The Trust is providing the funds required to undertake this feasibility work, which we anticipate will be either complete – or largely complete – this calendar year. Given the importance of a vet practice to both the crofting community and Tiree residents in general – many of whom have pets – the potential loss of a vet would be disastrous in many ways.
However, funding the necessary changes will be expensive and given the Trust’s financial position, we don’t envision being able to cover the cost of a renovation. The next challenge – along with recruiting a new vet – will undoubtedly be putting together a funding package.
We’ll provide updates on the project as and when we have them.
