The "exceptional' work-life balance in Lochaber will be heavily promoted to help grow the population by 25% over the next 15 years.
A new drive to encourage more people to live and work in the West Highland area, known as the "UK's Outdoor Capital", will focus on the lifestyle benefits and "diverse range of job opportunities".
Enterprise leaders are aiming to boost the 20,000 population by a quarter by 2040.
A report by Highland Council published in December following last year's census paints a worrying picture, showing that areas including Caithness, Sutherland and West Lochaber are being ‘drained of people’.
The Herald's New Highland Clearances series last month examined the challenges that are holding back population growth.
Our six-day series included exclusive interviews with politicians and policymakers and leading voices on demographic change taking in transport, housing, health, connectivity and education, all key to population resilience.
The Lochaber campaign will promote the University of the Highlands and Islands as the college and university of choice in areas including adventure tourism, maritime and aquaculture, creative industries and Gaelic.
UHI is also aiming to offer more qualifications up to postgraduate level in a range of other, more traditional subjects including construction, hairdressing, professional cookery and business.
'Lochaber has everything you need'
The campaign is being led by Lochaber Chamber of Commerce and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), working with businesses, communities, and public sector partners.
READ MORE:
Reversing Highland crisis requires policymakers to 'move heaven and earth'
'I know I'm part of the problem - this is why I left the Highlands'
Tourism push in 'forgotten' Highland clearances 'aggressive and unfair'
Frazer Coupland, CEO at Lochaber Chamber of Commerce, said: “Our aim is to see a 25% population increase by 2040.
"We believe that relocating to Lochaber offers an exceptional work-life balance.
“There are a diverse range of career opportunities across the region with SSE, Mowi, BSW, Alvance, and NHS Highland alongside unrivalled outdoor amenities including Nevis Range.
New census data shows Kinlochleven's population dropped by 17% between 2003 and 2020, from around 1000 people to 760. The high school has capacity for 288 pupils but its current roll is less than half that figure.
Like other areas that have suffered the loss of heavy industry, locals say the closure of the British Alcan aluminium smelter in June 2000 after 90 years "was the beginning of the rot for the village" with many forced to leave to find other jobs.
Graham Smith is a project engineer for the Alvance aluminium smelter in Fort William, one of only two in the UK.
On his decision to relocate to Lochaber he said: “We used to spend a lot of our weekends travelling to the hills and the mountains, so it made sense to move to the outdoor capital of the UK.
"It has massively improved our work-life balance.
Having a young family and getting to bring them up in this environment with a huge amount of like-minded people is just brilliant."
A masterplan is being taken forward for Fort William focussed on tourism and leisure facilities, a school, road improvements, housing and town centre revitalisation.
Alastair Nicolson, HIE’s area manager for Lochaber, Skye and Wester Ross, said: “This campaign will showcase the countless opportunities across this amazing region, whether you’re starting a career, raising a family, or just looking for a change.
“Our aim is for more people to recognise and appreciate what Lochaber can offer them and encourage growth across the region benefiting communities, businesses and organisations.
“We hope to see people from all over the UK engage with the campaign and get in touch to find out more about Lochaber and what their lives could look like here.”
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 here