Strathglass holiday bothies plan approved by Highland Council
Four off-grid holiday bothies look set to be built on the hillside in Strathglass after the plans were approved by Highland Council.
Tomich Holidays was seeking permission to erect the four bothies in an area of rough grazing ground on hillside near Guisachan Farm to south-east of Tomich.
The four sites, which also each include their own domestic wind turbine, will be spread apart and be accessed via an existing road and track from Tomich - with short sections of new track also built branching off to reach each of the different locations.
Two of the bothies will be located next to the small lochans of Loch Caoireach and Loch nam Freumh respectively, and both would boast nearby boathouses for access onto the respective water bodies.
Those two bothies, which would feature grey steel roofing and blue/grey timber cladding on their walls, would each house a living/kitchen room, two bedrooms, separate shower and compost toilet rooms, plus store rooms and an outside roofed-over decking area.
The two other bothies, which would be located roughly one to two kilometres respectively south-west of the lochs, would be built from different materials.
These would include stone clad walls, as well as some larch cladding, with turfed roofing. Solar panels would also be located on the roofs.
Internally, one would boast a bedroom with en-suite shower, kitchen, sitting room, and a compost toilet room. There would also be a balcony.
The other, larger of the two, would house two bedrooms, with shared shower room, a compost toilet room, and a kitchen/dining/sitting room with large external decking.
There were no objections to the plans.
Granting approval, Highland Council officers said: "The proposal is for four off grid bothies which would be unable to exist as standalone houses due to their location and lack of services.
"A condition will be added to the planning permission to ensure that the proposal can be used for holiday letting purposes only and not be used as a principle private residence."
They continued: "The placement of the bothies and boathouses combined with their design, natural materials and scale are considered to be suitable to a rural location and will assist the integration into the landscape.
"The layouts reflect the topography of the sites. This will help reduce the visual impact."
