Building A Difference - What Happened To Former 'Carbuncle' Towns? - Starting With John O'groats

16th November 2024

An article in Holyrood media yesterday 15 November 2024 highlights previously named carbuncle towns such as John O'Groats and the transformation taking place.

We are striving to make John O'Groats world-class," says Andrew Mowat, "and we're getting there."

or years, the Caithness village traded on its location on the northernmost edge of the UK mainland. Tourists came to have their picture taken at the signpost pointing to New York, London, Land's End, or wherever else they could pay a vendor to have a name inserted for the photo op; others came as part of the "end-to-end" route linking, eventually, with Land's End in England 876 miles away.

But cafe owner Mowat, who has lived his whole life there, doesn't want the 300-strong village to be "world-class just for visitors, it has to be world-class for locals as well" - a place not just to drop into but to stay in. And, as a resident, business owner and the treasurer of two local development trusts, he is part of efforts that have secured wholescale regeneration for the coastal community and helped it shrug off the status of "most dismal town" in Scotland.

[url=https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,building-a-difference-what-happened-to-former-carbuncle-towns]Read the full Holyrood article HERE[/url]