AN ICONIC island in the Inner Hebrides has closed to visitors while it undergoes “necessary improvement works” until next year.
Boat landings to Staffa’s jetty have been cancelled until spring 2025 while improvements and replacements are made to the island's infrastructure by the National Trust for Scotland.
The conservation organisation plans to widen the jetty on the island while replacing a key staircase due to the increasing number of visitors in a bid to help congestion.
Improvement work by the charity is being done outside of the seabird breeding season while visitor numbers to the island are at their quietest.
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The project is due to be completed by March 2025.
The latest improvements to be made to Staffa’s infrastructure follows earlier work, which was carried out in September 2022, to address erosion and improve footpaths on the top of the island.
An estimated 100,000 people visit Staffa each year to see the island’s most famous attractions including the basalt rock columns, Fingal’s Cave, and numerous seabird colonies.
The island's basalt cliffs and sea stacks are the result of a volcanic eruption that formed the island 59 million years ago and Fingal’s Cave is considered to be one of the most spectacular sea caves in the world.
Carved from the same basalt columns that shaped the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, the cave is 72-feet tall and 207-feet deep and bears the same distinctive hexagonal rock columns.
The cave has extraordinary natural acoustics and is named in Gaelic “Uamh-Binn”, meaning “cave of melody”, and has become a hugely popular tourist destination over recent years.
However, in 2018, access to Fingal’s Cave was restricted for a long period of time after extreme weather destroyed part of the walkway.
Some notably famous visitors who have marvelled at the spectacular geological beauty of Staffa and its incredible wildlife include Sir Walter Scott, Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Visitor numbers have risen dramatically in recent years to Staffa which is a world-famous National Nature Reserve.
The sea around the island is also a Marine Protected Area and a Special Area of Conservation with tens of thousands of tourists visiting the region every year to take in its natural beauty.
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