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Highland councillors back new ‘Dark Skies’ planning policy Highland councillors have agreed to take forward a new planning policy aimed at reducing light pollution across the region.  At a meeting of The Highland Council’s Economy and Infrastructure Committee held on Thursday 28 May 2026 members supported the proposed Dark Skies Draft Planning Policy, which will guide lighting requirements in new developments.  The policy aims to help protect Highland’s internationally recognised night skies while supporting environmental sustainability, community wellbeing and tourism. It will apply to any new developments subject to planning control and does not cover existing lighting.

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THE CONTINUING STORY OF REAL TO REEL –  A MEETING INVITATION

Cinema in Ullapool is soon to embark upon a new chapter.  In 2018, Terry and Tim with the support of the Harbour Trust, set up Real to Reel with fortnightly showings at the Ferry Terminal Building. It quickly established a loyal and enthusiastic audience who attended the season of films that ran from September to May.

Terry and Tim are now stepping down to make way for a new and vibrant team who will organise fresh and originalseasons of films beginning in Autumn 2026. We are holding a meeting on Tuesday 16th June to be held at 5 o’clock in the snug area in The Ceilidh Place to recruit new members of team to ensure all those film enthusiasts in Ullapool can help take Real to Reel forward.

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A Highland firm is to become the first Scottish company to return to the site of a defining tragedy that shaped the nation’s history, over three centuries on.

Ethical travel company, Nomadic Skies, from Ullapool, has been working with indigenous people in the Isthmus of Panama to lead the first commercial trip of its kind back to the historic site of the Darien Project. It was there, between 1698 and 1700, that thousands died in a failed attempt to establish a Scottish trading colony; a costly and consequential tragedy that became a factor in the union with England. Now, the company, founded by Highlander Gavin Anderson, will take visitors back to Darien next April; the latest Scottish commercial attempt to find joy in that unforgiving stretch of wilderness. The idea for a return trip, nearly 330 years later, stemmed from Mr Anderson’s colleague, film-maker James Appleton, who spent weeks as a guest  of the Darien’s Guna community.

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Two part article titled starts this week….

Remembering John Mackenzie MacLeod  The Newspaper Columnist known as ‘Lochbroom’
A Prominent Land Law Reform Campaigner.
His Ancestors fought at the Battle of Littleferry
125 years ago, one of the finest people to come from Lochbroom died. By the time of his death aged 61, John Mackenzie Macleod had spent most of his life in Liverpool but was still closely associated with his home parish due to the popular newspaper column which he wrote for many years under the pen-name ‘Lochbroom’.  He was born in Morefield in 1839 and went to school in Ullapool during the 1840s and 1850s, witnessing some
desperate events as a youngster and also becoming passionately interested in what had happened locally in previous decades, notably the 1745-46 Jacobite Rising.
Later in life, John’s amazing knowledge of Highland history stood him in good stead when, as a regular weekly columnist, he wrote for the Oban Times, Invergordon Times and North Star about current events and issues facing the region, especially the need for land law reform.

DS

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