Holmehill Community Buyout (former website)

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Welcome to the website of Holmehill Community Buyout.

Holmehill is a 13 acre greenspace in the centre of Dunblane. Between 2005 and 2018 we worked to defend it from developers, and tried to take it into community control in order to develop it sustainably for the benefit of the community.

Situated to the east of the River Allan, overlooking the cathedral, Holmehill is an important landscape feature of this cathedral city. The site currently supports mature policy woodlands, as well as open areas of grass and scrub. A well-used path runs through the site and links the community on the east of Dunblane with the town centre. The trees and the hill are a prominent and important landscape feature of the town, providing a sense of place.

Holmehill Community Buyout was formed in January 2005, when the hill was put up for sale by Hilton Hotels, the owners of the Dunblane Hydro hotel. The Hydro and Holmehill had been in common ownership for many years. The two properties stand on either side of the main road through Dunblane.

Until recently the hill was owned by Allanwater Developments, a local property development company. They made a number of applications to develop the hill, which we successfully resisted.

In June 2018 we heard that the hill had been bought by a local charity, the Carman Family Foundation Trust, which proposes to develop it as a resource for the community. It seems clear that our basic aims will be met by the new charity, and the AGM in November agreed that Holmehill Ltd (the registered name of Holmehill Community Buyout) should be dissolved. This closed a campaign that began on the 3rd of January 2005.

This website is being preserved as a source of information about the hill: both its past history and the story of its defense.

Follow the links to find out more about the Hill and our campaign.