Will this mean people moving away from areas like this - and will this be good for serious preppers?
If I had the cash, I'd move away from here in a heartbeat. That isn't said lightly. The highlands is my home. I was born and raised in the highlands and have seen, over my lifetime, the winters fluctuate and go from one extreme to the other only to settle, in recent years, on the 'cold extreme'. As I've just said in the other thread about this, the cold is a killer. Snow might look pretty but it grinds everything to a halt, not the inch or so of snow folks get further south, but up to six feet of it and more in drifts. Nothing's getting through that.
If it lasts for months like the past two years, that means being cut off from shops, regular doctor trips, and other amenities. The council doesn't bother keeping very many single country roads open.
If you are born to this you learn very young to prep for it. You grow up never calling it prepping, mind you, and take for granted you have enough savvy to make sure you lay in enough food, fuel and so on to tide you over being snowed in. It's just a way of life.
Well, I'm a deal older now and such winters are hard on older folks with ailing health.
not to mention, the economic 'downturn' ( hate that word....) meant that not so long ago I had to use up all my prep stock to tide us over our own economic crisis. We have struggled this summer to replace it but haven't got anywhere near to where we were before. Just haven't got the means.
I see people come and go here. They see the place in summer, fall in love with it, and move. Then winter hits. Very few stick it out and last more than one or two winters. The community structures that used to exist in places like this are no longer there as youngsters have no choice but to move south to find work, as schools close, doctors and dentists are cut, and old people die out with nobody to replace them.
Much of the wilder parts of the highlands, once bearing thriving wee communities that could happily withstand winters, are gone.
If anyone wants wilderness, it's here. If you want isolation, it's here. If you want great beauty, tranquility and a great deal of personal freedom, it's here.
But if you want community, forget it. If you want amenities that other parts of Scotland take for granted, ditto. The highlands are slowly being depopulated, some believe deliberately, leaving space only for summer holiday homes, rich playgrounds, and vast areas of 'wildlife parks' that people are discouraged from living and working on.
I fully expect not to end my days here. Can't tell you how heartbreaking that actually is. But until the heart is put back into these isolated areas, winters become not the beauty they could be, but dangerous and backbreaking.
House prices are already falling here. You can pick up a wee crofthouse for £135 thou, less than half of this time last year.
But it's only for the young, fit and dedicated. And even they should bear in mind they'll one day be old, infirm and lonely. And this isn't the place for that.
Sorry to be so negative. We can't all be cheerful all the time, especially in the face of the reality of it.
I really do think many folks totally underestimate winters further north.
there is nothing like being prepared, and oh boy are we prepared? 
The young are pretty much fearless and believe, still, in their own immortality.
