AN Australian family whose dream was to make their home in the Highlands have been dealt a devastating blow in their fight to remain in Scotland.
Gregg and Kathryn Brain and their son Lachlan, who is now seven, came to Scotland nearly five years ago as part of an initiative to repopulate the Highlands.
They have been living in Dingwall, where Lachlan – whose first language is Gaelic – is settled at school and is an active member of the Gaelic community.
Their hopes of being able to stay here indefinitely depended on one of them getting a job that satisfied Home Office visa regulations.
A potential employer for Kathryn was forced to pull out of the process and the couple had pinned their hopes on Gregg securing a job with Highland Council, after Immigration Minister James Brokenshire allowed them to stay until May 31 following a meeting with their MP Ian Blackford.
This was to enable a prospective employer to lodge a sponsor licence, but now the job that Gregg had set his heart on is “no longer available”.
Kathryn told The National yesterday: “We got a letter in the post last Friday night from the Highland Council advising that ‘It is with regret that due to a change in circumstances, the post is no longer available’.
“Enquiries were made by both ourselves and our council representative in Ian Blackford’s office to find out what change in circumstances had occurred.
“It was confirmed to us today that it was due to a redeployee from within the council being placed into the position.
“Disappointment is a gross understatement on our part.
“We knew that when Gregg had applied for this position that it was literally our last throw of the dice for us to fit with the Home Office requirements for a work visa – and what a perfect fit it would have been.”
The job matched Gregg’s background in health and safety, accident investigation and training.
Kathryn said: “It was identical to a combination of the positions he held at Education Queensland, being able to encompass his complete skill set, while still allowing him room to further develop those skills and see immediate results, thereby giving him a greater job satisfaction in the knowledge that what he would be doing on a daily basis would be improving educational outcomes.
“It also neatly fit into one of the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) categories set by the Home Office and the council is already an ‘A’ rated Tier 2 Sponsor, indicating that they’ve been through this process before for other employees.”
She added: “It seems this is the end of the line for us for our dream to live and work in the Highlands... for now.
“In the meantime, it appears that unless some miracle happens in the next 20 days, we’ll be having to return to Australia before the end of this month. We hope we will ‘haste ye back’ – we will just have to find another way.”
Blackford agreed that a miracle might be the only way the family would be able to stay.
He said: “There are so many twists and turns in this case. Just when you think you’ve made progress you’re knocked back to square one.
“We really do need to pull a rabbit out of the hat now – we need a miracle.”
However, the last words are from Kathryn said: “We’d like to yet again thank all of our supporters for us to continue to find a way to immigrate to the Highlands.
“You have no idea how much we appreciate the love and support we’ve not only received from perfect strangers these last few weeks, but over the whole time we’ve been living here.
“We’ve really felt so welcomed from day one and now we feel like we truly are part of the community and family here.”
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