SCOTTISH business heavyweight Sir Brian Souter has lent his backing to a campaign to build what would be the first tartan weaving mill in the Highlands.
Prickly Thistle, the Dingwall-based design house, is looking to raise £500,000 for the development on the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform. Founder Clare Campbell has launched the “Build the Mill” campaign, which goes live today, after struggling to find a suitable manufacturing partner for the bespoke products she designs. Most tartan mills operate on a high volume basis.
The entrepreneur, who has clients at home and abroad, decided to develop her own mill and acquired a farm steading on the Black Isle to convert. Pre-planning approval has been secured. Ms Campbell, a chartered accountant, got to know Sir Brian after giving a presentation to the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), of which he is the president. Ms Campbell said: “I am delighted that such a prominent businessman has given his support. I hope that this campaign to raise funds will help me build another global brand like Stagecoach that Scotland can be proud of.”
Sir Brian noted: “I met Clare for the first time when she presented at the ICAS annual conference. She explained to me her vision for a highly ambitious and modern contemporary tartan brand – with a business plan that is set to re-design the tartan industry from the Highlands. One that restores the full manufacturing of the cloth to its birthplace.”
Ms Campbell said investors in the campaign, which will run for 60 days, can pledge different amounts of cash, and receive luxury gift rewards worth between £15 and £8,000 in return.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel