Achi news desk-
It has been owned by heritage body Nature Scot since 1957 and operated as a hostel until 2015 before it was closed and now requires around £10million of repair work.
Jeremy Hosking, a city treasurer and former Conservative Party donor, was in late-stage talks to buy the 19th-century pile and put it into a trust last year before he pulled out of the deal in March last year.
Mr Hosking Green accused Scotland of “crushing a conservation project” and blamed Ms Slater for his decision to pull out of the purchase, describing it as a “horrendous process”.
It was reported that the biodiversity minister stopped the sale in November after islanders raised a number of concerns, including access to land around the castle.
However, in a letter to Scottish MP Kate Forbes Ms Slater said she had “very little involvement in the previous proposed sale, whether positive or negative”.
He said the Scottish Government remained committed to securing a sustainable future for Kinloch Castle but said any sale “should be carefully considered as the outcome will have a major impact on a small island community”.
She has commissioned a Delphi study to gather the views of the islanders and heritage group Kinloch Castle Friends Association will also be consulted.
Ewan Macdonald, chairman of the association, said: “We have no doubt that Kinloch Castle could be a huge asset to the small islands.
“You could have nature tourism, marine tourism, sailing, guided walks.
“We know there is a lot of interest in it and new people are showing up all the time but not from the point of view of buying it.
“It needs a lot of work and what we had was a rich millionaire, a self-made man with Highland connections who had spent half his time in Strontian and wanted to do good and I think that’s what we need. Someone with money who will restore it.
“It needs to be run as a commercial business. Our business plan showed it could be self-sustaining once it is properly restored.”
He said that the number of visitors on Rwm was “twice as high as they are now” when the castle was in use because it could sleep 50 and the island lacked accommodation.
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“Meanwhile Eigg and Muck and Canna have had a 50% increase in the number of their visitors,” he said.
“When they closed the castle they replaced it with a 20-bed bunkhouse, which is very, very well run but doesn’t suit everyone.
“Tourism is going to give life to the island and that could be nature tourism, bird tourism, geological tourism.
“At one time eight universities sent groups to Rum and that is exactly what it should be used for as well as for people who want to walk or fish.”
The turreted, two-storey castle was built as the private home of Sir George Bullough, a Lancashire textile tycoon whose father bought Rùm as his summer home and shooting estate.
It was designed to satisfy the whims of an extravagant and luxurious Victorian lifestyle and houses a German orchestral organ said to have been made for Queen Victoria, designed to reproduce the sound of a full orchestra.
However, not everyone is in favor of restoring the castle.
Jim Crumley, a Scottish nature writer, described the castle as “a monument to enormous wealth and ego and acquisitive greed”.
He wrote: “It is a building without a redeeming feature.. a hideous building. It perpetuates the memory of only the worst kind of lords of the island… a horrible conflict, but nothing that a good fire and subsequent demolition could not rectify it”.
