Living on Coll has its price;(pause for laughter) – and no small part of this price arises from the simple cost of bare essentials – like tins of dog food and turnips.

However, contrary to the impressions of many of us here, the situation is not getting much worse – so, at least, the most recent: ‘Rural Scotland Price Survey’ reports.

Considering the range of expenses on food, other goods, housing, transport and services, and taking Aberdeen as an arbitrary average, we find that the Highlands and Islands are pretty consistently 3-4% higher – about the same as Edinburgh in fact. Coll, itself, comes out as 9.2% above average – which is about 1% up on last year – and is presently the 4th. Most expensive place to live in Scotland. The most expensive areas are in Shetland which, again, is much as last year.

Table 1 shows a breakdown of these costs.

Here Table 1
Coll Prices as % of Scottish Average.

The data can be further broken down as in Table2. where a summary of the last four survey results is shown, from summer 1991 onwards. The figures compare the costs of food, petrol, etc. on Coll with the average costs for the Highlands & Islands. Thus, in Summer ’91, the cost of Petrol on

Here Table 2
Coll Prices as % of Scottish Average.

Coll was 11.1% more that the H.& I. average and this relative price has actually fallen slightly until is now 10.1% above average. The price at the pump, of course, has gone up and petrol on Coll is still far more expensive than anywhere else but the cost relative to other remote regions, has come down just a little since summer 1991.

The relative costs of Groceries and Meat have remained fairly constant since 1991 but the other categories show rather surprising fluctuations. Fruit & Veg. in summer ’92, going from 11.9% to 25.2% above average! Whilst both Fish and Drink & Tobacco have become relatively far cheaper. The Total Food costs are down to 5.9% above average and Coll is currently the 7th most expensive area for food.

Now the cost of living in an area like Coll is largely a function of remoteness (affecting carriage costs) and population size (affecting retail turnover) and hence the costs relative to other comparable communities ought to remain more or less constant unless there are changes in population and/or remoteness. Since then there is no evidence of any such change over the 2½ years since summer ’91, why should the relative prices change? There could be a degree of variation due to local conditions, so that if on Coll, locally caught fish suddenly became available whilst locally grown Fruit & Veg. suddenly ceased to be available, then the reported relative price changes for Fish and Fruit & Veg. would be explicable (providing that similar changes in availability didn’t also occur in other remote regions.). However, such seems not to be the case - so the puzzle remains.

By the way, in last year’s Magazine we recommended that our readers move to Annan, Dumfries-shire, to minimise their outgoings; this is still the case – about 20% cheaper than Coll for food.