A ROW is growing over a community garden on a Hebridean island.

The thorny situation involves Islay House Community Garden and the hotel which allows the grassroots project to use a portion of its grounds.

The owners of Islay House Hotel, which recently changed hands, say they are “committed” to the continuation of the charity initiative, which is now in its thirteenth year.

But those behind the community scheme say that its future is at stake over access to the four acre site, which is part of 28 acres connected to the listed building.

Head gardener Tom Skinner told The National: “We’ve got to a stalemate.

“We need to come to an agreement that allows us the security of tenure we need to satisfy funders.”

The Garden has two paid staff and around 15 volunteers and produces fruits, vegetables and herbs for sale to the local community, including hotels and restaurants.

The project began in 2005 when Bridgend Community Centre agreed to a 15-year licence with Tom Friedrich, the previous owner of Islay House Hotel, to create what chairman George Dean says is “the island’s only local source of fresh seasonal produce”.

The website for the hotel – which buys the garden’s produce and does not charge rent – praises its “serenity”, saying the enterprise has “thrived through the community’s devoted efforts”.

But the existing agreement runs out in 2020 and organisers say they cannot secure future funding unless a new deal is made.

The hotel has offered the garden a six-year lease containing a three-year break clause designed to remove barriers for a future purchaser in the event that current owners Steven Haag and Paul Brown – who took over in 2014 – choose to sell up or seek new investors.

It also includes a requirement to end sales to rival hostelries and take on responsibility for repairs to walls and paths, something currently estimated at anywhere from £10,000 to £15,000.

In a written statement to island newletter Ileach, Haag said it would be “negligent” to do a deal without such a clause and offered to “do what we can to support” the charity’s efforts to secure long-term funding.

But Dean says the Garden cannot afford the extra costs and the break clause will put off backers – with dwindling reserves meaning the £30,000-a-year operation could run out of cash within months.

He said: “There is a risk that we would run out of cash in 2019.”

He went on: “We should be able to solve this on Islay, but we might not be able to.”

A public meeting was held on the issue last week and Fiona McCusker, whose 20-year-old son David volunteers at the project, fears he will lose his “purpose” if it closes.

David is on the autistic spectrum and has other complex needs, and his mother says all other projects suitable for adults with learning disabilities on the island have closed. She said: “Since he left school, he has no friends, he has no social life. He needs something. This has given him purpose.

“To lose this would be awful. I don’t know what we’d fill it with.”

Explaining the hotel position in the Ileach, Haag said adding that any charity funding problems are “not our responsibility”.

On the issue of the Garden’s produce being sold to rival outfits, he said: “We definitely don’t want the fact that produce has come from the Garden to appear on someone else’s menu.

He added: “Most restaurants with gardens don’t sell any of their produce to anybody else.”

Pledging that there is “no intention” to remove access to the public, he continued: “Regardless of what happens with this group of people – who have done a great job getting the Garden to where it is – even if we fail to work something out, the public would not notice any change.”