The small town hoping to stop its young people leaving

On a sunny day, Gatehouse of Fleet looks a pretty idyllic place to live.

There is a bustle about the main street and sitting with a coffee by the banks of the River Fleet feels like a good place to leave your worries behind you.

However, it is not a straightforward place for young people looking to set up a home of their own.

Hopes are high that an old garage site at one end of the town could have a part to play in solving that problem in this picturesque part of Galloway.

Julia Weston is a member of the Gatehouse Development Initiative (GDI) which has recently taken community ownership of the Woodside land and secured planning permission for its £3.4m vision.

It would create seven two-bedroom homes for rent on land which has been empty for some time.

"It's been vacant and derelict for over 20 years," she said.

"I've been looking at it for ages, thinking, why does nobody do anything with this site?

"It's in the middle of the conservation area, it's opposite the War Memorial, opposite the Mill Pond, quite a key location - it's the first thing you see when you come into the town."

Previous plans had involved building flats or luxury homes but GDI - working with South of Scotland Community Housing - found demand for affordable housing to rent was high.

"Everything that was coming up for sale at that point was being sold as a second home," Julia explained.

"We found that what people wanted was smaller homes.

"They wanted one and two bedrooms because a lot of the homes in Gatehouse have got sort of three plus bedrooms and they're under-occupied."

The old garage site could help address that issue.

"The big problem that Gatehouse has is that it's an ageing population," said Julia.

"Young people just can't afford to live here.

"They can't afford to live here, they can't afford to stay here, so they end up moving away."

She said the town's population aged 65 and over was 38% - nearly double the national average - while just 5% were aged between 16 and 24, about half the figure for the country as whole.

"It's vitally important for Gatehouse to be able to retain younger people," she said.

"They do want to stay here and come back here and so affordability and being able to live here is really important

"So the plan is that we weight the allocations in favour of younger people and also key workers."

That's music to the ears of 25-year-old Asia Fairnie, who grew up in Gatehouse but moved away to study in Dundee and Stirling.

She came back about two years ago, opened the Angel Coffee House, and is living in her parents' house with her partner.

Finding a place of their own has proved problematic.

"It's very rare for anything, for renting anyway, to come available," she said.

"I think the whole two years that I have been back in Gatehouse, I've only ever really seen one place come up for rent maybe - but it was nabbed pretty quickly.

"A lot of things that do come available are houses for sale for like £200,000 to £300,000 - so quite unrealistic if you've not really got much savings."

She said the new homes planned at Woodside could be ideal to rent while saving up to buy your own.

She said she knew they were "quite lucky" to be able to live with her parents but they definitely need their own space.

"A lot of people move out of Gatehouse because of the lack of places to rent," she added.

"It would be a bit of like a breath of fresh air, you know, having a bit of a younger community.

"There would be a lot more things going on I think, as well, if we did have a bit more of a younger group in town."