HUNTLY

	Historic Overview

Huntly spent much of its long history under the name of Milton of Strathbogie. The original name persisted long after 1506, when Alexander, the third Earl of Huntly, was granted a charter changing the name of his castle (subsequently Huntly Castle) and his surrounding lands. The origins of Huntly probably date back to a settlement serving the original castle, the Peel of Strathbogie, built in the 1180s. The major change, however, came in 1769, when the Duke of Gordon established a planned town here. With the new building and new plan came acceptance of a new name and "Huntly" finally replaced Milton of Strathbogie on the maps. By 1799 Huntly had 3000 inhabitants, compared with around 4000 today. A range of industries operated here with textiles playing a significant part. Over the following years it also tried its hand at distilling, though with much less success than nearby Speyside. The textile industry had also all but disappeared by 1850.

The real turning point for commerce in Huntly came with the arrival of the railway in 1854. It later became an important freight centre on the Aberdeen to Inverness line and continues to enjoy regular services having gained a new railway station in 2000. Huntly is also well placed to take advantage of the road network, lying on the main A96 from Aberdeen to Inverness. Most would agree it has been much better placed since the building of a bypass in the 1970s, taking the through traffic round the south of the town. Huntly itself is a solid town build largely of an impressive grey stone. At its heart is the main square. From here the road to the south, and the bypass, passes the imposing clock tower built in 1890. North, the road runs past the town's war memorial and through an arch in the Simpson Building en route to Huntly Castle. The Simpson Building was built in the late 1700s with stone quarried from the Castle. The centre of Huntly is an intriguing and attractive mix of the large stone buildings on the main routes and around the square, backed by a grid of streets flanked by smaller scale stone cottages and houses. It is something of a surprise to discover that since its unsuccessful foray into distilling in the 1800s Huntly has not shared this part of the heritage of many of the towns and villages to the west and north-west of it like Dufftown or Keith. Huntly does have much to see and do however including a Nordic Ski Centre near the castle: the UK's only year round centre for the sport, and of course, Huntly Castle itself, which is in the care of Historic Scotland.

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	Facts and Figures

Town profile

> click here to view the town profile

As part of the ATP Huntly strategy process Gen Consulting and Douglas Wheeler Associates collated and analysed a wide range of information. The results are presented below as a review of economic and social indicators in Huntly arranged around five key themes

• Population
• The local business base and employment profile
• School leavers and exam results
• Housing and land availability
• Health inequalities.

Population

Huntly’s population has grown slowly over the last ten years, and at a slower rate than Aberdeenshire

• the town has a high number of older residents
• the town’s population is expected to continue to fall

Business base

• the number of businesses in Huntly has fallen over the last four years
• like the rest of Scotland, Huntly is a town of small businesses…
• but Huntly has different types of businesses than elsewhere in Aberdeenshire and Scotland

Employment profile

• the number of jobs in Huntly has fallen over the last four years.
• women account for a smaller proportion of the workforce in Huntly than in the rest of Scotland
• the public sector is the largest employer in the town, although retail and hospitality and manufacturing are also important employers

School leavers and exam results

• the Gordon Schools performs strongly both in terms of exam results and students staying on beyond S4
• a high proportion of school leavers from Huntly progress on to Higher Education

Housing and land availability

• there have been a significant number of new houses built in Huntly over the last 10 years, although the rate of growth has been much slower than in other settlements close to Aberdeen such as Ellon and Inverurie
• levels of industrial and commercial development in the town have historically been low

Health inequalities

• a higher proportion of the town’s population under the age of 65 was claiming attendance allowance than throughout Aberdeenshire
• a lower percentage of the local population in Huntly East were claiming disability Living Allowance (DLA) than throughou Aberdeenshire
• estimated smokers and the level of deaths attributable to smoking was a significant health issue for the town
• in Huntly in 2001, 20% of the population suffered from a long-term limiting illness, compared with 15% in Aberdeenshire and 20% in Scotland as a whole

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	Strategy

Click here to download the full executive summary (275kb PDF).
Click here to download the full strategy document (508kb PDF).

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	Objectives

The shared vision of the people of Huntly for the town in 2020 is:

‘Huntly is a growing, thriving, well-connected and managed market town that retains its individuality. Huntly has a dynamic, diverse and user-friendly town centre that has kept its distinctive local character and is the heart of the town and wider rural community.

The high quality of life, inclusive sense of pride in the town, the positive and committed business community and strong local culture in Huntly means that people want to live, work and visit now and in the future.
Huntly is a town where residents, businesses and agencies all pull together.’

To realise this vision the community agreed six themes for action in the following order of priority:

• Promoting business development and growth
• Promoting Huntly’s image and marketing
• Improving the environment and encouraging visitors
• Investing in quality buildings and sustainable sites and infrastructure
• Encouraging skills and learning
• Promoting sports, health , art and culture

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	Key Projects

In turn the community identified a number of possible projects to help realise the objectives of each theme.

Theme 1: Promoting business development and growth

Objective

To help local businesses develop so ensuring that Huntly can continue to provide a wide range of good quality jobs.

Possible projects

• Carry out a survey of local business needs
• Develop and strengthen the Huntly Business Association
• Create a Huntly business website with events and activities
• Work with larger companies on the Scottish Executive’s Determined to Succeed programme
• Explore e-business opportunities
• Promote local sourcing of goods and services

Theme 2: Promoting Huntly’s image and marketing

Objective

To coordinate the marketing of Huntly as a day trip and short break destination.

Projects Options

• Review the Huntly Brand
• Produce a town centre leaflet
• Develop a town centre website linked to community web
• Create a shop local campaign and welcome pack

Theme 3: Improving the environment and encouraging visitors

Objective

To create a high-quality, clean and safe environment to increase the number of visitors to the town and improve the visitor experience.

Possible projects

• Promote stewardship & maintenance of The Square and town centre
• Encourage quality window displays
• Improve signage & interpretation
• Develop authentic holidays
• Take advantage of economic development opportunities from the local environment
• Install landmark lighting

Theme 4: Investing in quality buildings and sustainable sites and infrastructure

Objective

To promote investment in high quality residential, business, community and leisure development on key sites in Huntly.

Projects Options

• Draw up guidelines for location and design quality of future developments
• Review traffic management proposals

Theme 5: Encouraging skills and learning

Objective

To ensure that Huntly residents have the opportunity to enhance their skills.

Projects Options

• Develop a traditional building skills training programme
• Initiate a hospitality welcome programme
• Establish a virtual business and learning centre

Theme 6: Promoting sports, health, arts and culture

Objective

To use sports, the arts, culture and the heritage of Huntly to make the town an attractive visitor destination and to improve the health and well-being of Huntly residents.

Possible projects

• Compile a community directory
• Establish an events programme
• Exploit Huntly’s sporting strengths
• Develop a health and well-being initiative
• Improve and promote town venues
• Acquire a town marquee

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	Contacts

You can also send mail to or visit the ATP Co-ordinator Huntly at:

Huntly Business Centre
Gordon Street
Huntly
AB54 8FG
Tel: 01466-799416
Fax: 01466-795315
 

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	Latest news

Huntly's progress towards the future:
> Huntly matters 1
> Huntly matters 2
> Huntly matters 3

After a long absence Huntly is once again to have a new distillery based in the town.

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