BBC presenter Kirsty Young and her entrepreneur husband Nick Jones have put up their 100-acre private island up for sale for a staggering £3m price tag but it could end up setting a buyer back £10m
A BBC broadcaster has put her uninhabited private island up for sale for a staggering £3million price tag, but the land is home to an animal rare in the UK.
TV and radio presenter Kirsty Young purchased Inchconnachan island, on Scotland’s famous Loch Lomond, from £1.6million back in 2020. The broadcaster bought the island with her husband Nick Jones, who owns founded the swanky private members’ club chain Soho House, but the couple are looking to sell up after their plans for the quiet spot fell through.
Inchconnachan island is known as Scotland’s “Wallaby Island” as it is home to a colony of red-necked wallabies – the only wild ones in Scotland.
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The island was previously owned by the aristocratic Colquhoun family but has been uninhabited for the past two decades. It has a derelict cabin on the island and is now covered in woodlands and home to the wallabies – believed to have been brought over in the 1940s as part of the clan’s private collection.
It is thought Lady Arran Colquhoun moved the wallabies from her home in Hertfordshire up to the Scottish island, at the end of the Second World War, and they have remained there since. The couple had planned to transform the uninhabited 100-acre island by building a short-term holiday rental home with a boathouse and jetty.
These plans also included employing wardens to oversee conservation efforts and would have let to wallabies stay. The former Desert Island Discs and Crimewatch host, and her husband, lodged an application for this on 2021.
The island has now been listed by luxury real estate agent Sotheby’s, which has listed the plans on the description for the land. This island has been put up for sale with two buying options.
Inchconnachan island can be bought with planning permission for £3million or it can be purchased as a fully completed investment for £10million. The £10m prince tag includes the optional construction of a luxury retreat on the island, which could take around two years to set up.
The listing has been described as being able to offer to buyer “extraordinary seclusion” along with “elevated viewpoints and the sweeping shoreline offer uninterrupted views towards Ben Lomond”. Jones said: “The house has been designed for extreme comfort, for family, for golfing and fishing weekends, as well as moments of solitude and reflection.”
The island is a 10-minute boat ride from the Loch Lomond golf club. Nick Jones, 62, was successfully treated for prostate cancer but last year said his health battle changed his life.
On his decision to sell the island, Jones told the Wall Street Journal: “My priorities have changed. When you go through what I went through, you’re looking for a slightly smaller life rather than a bigger life.”
