It\u2019s thought that 2.6% of Scotland is community owned but a new land reform bill, due before the Scottish Parliament this year, will herald changes, says BBC Countryfile’s John Craven <\/p>
From the wild mountains in the north to the rolling hills of the south, much of Scotland\u2019s countryside is owned by a relatively small number of private landowners and public bodies. But a shake-up is underway that could result i<\/strong>n local communities taking over when big estates come up for sale.<\/p> For centuries, the lairds were all-powerful, but in recent years many have been selling out to investors, such as Anders Holch Povlsen, the Danish billionaire who now owns 89,400 hectares of Scotland. With this has come growing concern about the adverse effects of scale, when so many of the nation\u2019s natural resources are in so few hands. Campaigners say that knowing who owns and controls the land is crucial in building a \u201cfairer, greener Scotland\u201d.<\/p> It\u2019s thought that 2.6% of the country (around 86,000 hectares) is community owned but a new land reform bill, due before the Scottish Parliament this year, will herald changes.<\/p> \u201cIt aims to improve transparency of land ownership, help ensure that large-scale land holdings deliver in the public interest and empower communities by providing more opportunities to own land and have more say in how land in their area is used,\u201d says Mairi Gougeon, the Government\u2019s rural affairs and land reform secretary.<\/p> At the same time, Crown Estates Scotland, which manages land owned by the King but with profits going to the Scottish Government, is working on a significant new scheme. Using its wealth, power and experience it would buy country estates that come on the market and \u2018put them on hold\u2019 until local communities manage to raise enough money to take them over.<\/p> With land prices soaring, experts say this intervention is vital, especially in the Highlands<\/a> and Scottish Islands<\/a> with their unique tradition of crofting. Crofts are small patches of agricultural land, most of them tenanted.<\/p> Donald MacKinnon, chair of the Scottish Crofting Federation, tells me there is big demand for more crofts, and it\u2019s not only private estates that should be utilised. <\/p> \u201cA lot of land is held publicly in Scotland between the Crown Estates, the forestry authorities and the Government itself,\u201d he says. <\/p> \u201cI think there should be a move to see more of this land transferred into community ownership and control. We would like to see \u2018re-people-ing\u2019 in places where historically they haven\u2019t been for generations, and crofting is a mechanism for doing that.\u201d<\/p> Donald is one of 920 active crofters on the islands of Lewis and Harris in the Western Isles, where 70% of land is community owned. <\/p> \u201cPeople-led buyouts can apply for finance from the Scottish government\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote> Across the nation, people-led buyouts can apply for financial assistance from the Scottish government\u2019s special fund, which hands out \u00a311m a year to \u201csupport rural and local communities become more resilient and sustainable through ownership of land and land assets\u201d. <\/p> Last year, the fund contributed \u00a31m towards the south of Scotland\u2019s biggest-ever community buyout, turning hundreds of hectares at Langholm into a nature reserve. New jobs are being created and plans include more eco-tourism. <\/p> The buyout mirrors a trend among new estate owners favouring rewilding and other green projects, which must be of concern to Scotland\u2019s traditional rural income providers: grouse shooting and deer stalking.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n It\u2019s thought that 2.6% of Scotland is community owned but a new land reform bill, due before the Scottish Parliament this year, will herald changes, says BBC Countryfile’s John Craven <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":31311,"template":"","categories":[1,27,57],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/10\/john-craven-could-more-of-scotland-be-community-owned.jpg",2560,1734,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/10\/john-craven-could-more-of-scotland-be-community-owned-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/10\/john-craven-could-more-of-scotland-be-community-owned-300x203.jpg",300,203,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/10\/john-craven-could-more-of-scotland-be-community-owned-768x520.jpg",768,520,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/10\/john-craven-could-more-of-scotland-be-community-owned-1024x694.jpg",800,542,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/10\/john-craven-could-more-of-scotland-be-community-owned-1536x1040.jpg",1536,1040,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2023\/10\/john-craven-could-more-of-scotland-be-community-owned-2048x1387.jpg",2048,1387,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"It\u2019s thought that 2.6% of Scotland is community owned but a new land reform bill, due before the Scottish Parliament this year, will herald changes, says BBC Countryfile's John Craven","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/31310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fairer, greener Scotland<\/h2>
A rise in crofts<\/h2>
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