A BRIGHT yellow campervan will set off on a tour of Scotland this week as part of an innovative project aimed at creating a valuable archive of community buyouts.

Travelling in the Yellow Campervan, oral history expert Carol Stobie will aim to collate a comprehensive picture of the origins and development of community buyouts all across the country.

She will encourage local people to record their knowledge in order to build up an archive of oral history with pictures, audio and video reflecting their fascinating stories.

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“This is all about communities and all these communities have an important and entertaining story to tell,” said Linsay Chalmers, Community Land Scotland development manager.

“Community ownership has been one of the biggest social movements in the past 100 years and it’s important that we record that as part of Scotland’s history.

“It has proved overwhelmingly successful and that’s thanks to the efforts of ordinary people across the country. It’s their stories that we want to hear – what have they found uplifting and what has been more tricky?”

The project is part of “100 Years of Community Ownership”, celebrating the overwhelmingly successful community buyout movement which started in the Highlands and is increasingly popular across much of rural and urban Scotland.

“There are more than 500 community-owned projects across Scotland and they all have stories to tell,” said Stobie. “What is the history of the people in these places? What made them opt to take control of local resources? What were the positives and negatives?

“There is a great tradition of oral history in Scotland and a huge amount of knowledge and I will be encouraging people to capture that so we have an archive that reflects the great range of different experiences, as well as the common factors.

“We also want it to be up-to-date so that we have a solid record of how people in these communities feel today and what their hopes and aspirations are for the future.”

The campervan will visit more than 20 sites, starting in Lewis tomorrow (February 5), Harris on Tuesday (February 6).

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The project then moves to Argyll with sessions in Inverary and Kames before moving on to Tayinloan, where representatives of the iconic buyout in Gigha will join the session.

The campervan will then be crossing the water again to Islay and Mull, before two days in North Skye followed by a tour of the Highland mainland.

The tour finishes in the Borders, taking in Galashiels, Langholm and Sanquhar, with the final session in Newton Stewart on March 14.