Land Reform Campaign

Our campaign ‘Scotland for sale! But who is buying…?’ has been launched to raise awareness around the many issues surrounding land justice in Scotland:

We’re excited to get the discussion going at a bigger and broader level. We want everyone to be speaking about why land reform is important.

To keep up to date with campaign news, briefings, and ways to get involved, join the campaign by clicking the button below.

Background information

Scotland has one of the most concentrated landownership patterns in the world.

Swipe through the slides to understand more about why that is.

Did you know that 433 landowners own 50% of Scotland’s privately owned rural land? That’s one of the most concentrated landownership patterns in the whole world.

Scotland has one of the most concentrated landownership patterns in the world.

Swipe through the slides to understand more about why that is.

Due to the notorious stories of unjust ownership and community resistance throughout the Highlands and Islands, and the more widespread rememberence of the Highland Clearances, these areas are often thought of as being the main area of Scotland affected by concentrated landownership. However, concentrated and unjust patterns of landownership have had an equal but different impact in the Lowlands (South of Scotland) and central belt, and have fundamentally impacted the way many of us live. Who owns the land impacts everyone, all across Scotland. The challenges may be different but the underlying problems are the same.

The clearance of the Lowlands was a crucial factor in Scotland’s Industrial Revolution. Farmers and cottars were cleared off their land from mid-1600s to make way for cattle and more ‘efficient’ farming (as opposed to subsistence). The land was cleared and enclosed for the benefit of landowners who desired the same wealth and status as those in England, driving forward the Agricultural Revolution. These dispossessed people became wage labourers in factories in the Central Belt and new villages in the South of Scotland, while increased argricultural output was intended to feed the growing urban population.

In Galloway in the early 1700s the landworkers and peasants had few alternative places to go when they were cleared from their land, leading to the uprising known as the Levellers. Peasants put efforts into levelling the dykes (drystone walls) that had been constructed as borders for new cattle fields. This uprising was eventually quelled. The Lowland Clearances led to an extremely concentrated landownership pattern, but due to the contrast between this slow dispossession and the (relatively) more recent and violent dispossession of the Highlands and Islands, the impacts of the Lowland clearances have largely gone under the radar, allowing some of the most powerful landed interests to remain unchallenged.

There are extremely high concentrations of hereditary landownership in Southern Scotland in the hands of the Dukes of Buccleuch and Roxburghe and estates owned by the Home, Douglas and Dalzell families. Landownership has always underpinned power, and continues to. While we no-longer need to be male and property-owning to vote, the landowning elite hold a lot of political and economic influence. For example, in 2014, the Duke of Buccleuch lobbied MSP Fergus Ewing behind closed doors to fast-track a £1bn plan for Scotland’s largest windfarm, to reap multi-million pound profits for Buccleuch and squash out potential for smaller windfarm developments. Far from a romantic story of local, paternalistic wealth, estates such as Buccleuch generate wealth for powerful investors all over the world. Furthermore, land in the South of Scotland is increasingly being bought by international investment firms, such as Gresham House.

The South of Scotland faces depopulation, depleted biodiversity, low economic diversity, high levels of fuel poverty, lack of affordable housing and neglected highstreets in towns - all stemming from land use which prioritises wealth generation for landowners and shareholders rather than equitable and thriving communities. Much of the land in the South of Scotland is used as grouse moors, commercial forestry, and windfarms - creating a lot of money for landowners with little benefit to local people. Many communities in the South of Scotland are leading the way through community ownership and community-built housing. Examples of this include the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve and Midsteeple Quarter regeneration. The Duke of Buccleuch has sold some land to the community, but without more radical land reform little can be done to challenge the pervasive concentration of landownership and power in the South of Scotland.

Concentrated landownership is often thought of as an issue which only affects the Highlands and Islands, but it affects us all. The Lowlands of Scotland faced clearances and enclosure during the agricultural and industrial revolutions, fundamentally transforming Scotland’s economy and changing landownership/land use in the South. The Lowland clearances lead to mass dispossession, and a growth in labour force in towns and cities with awful living conditions, while fuelling Britain’s Imperial expansion overseas.

The South of Scotland is facing massive economic and social challenges, while powerful landed interests in the South often fly under the radar. Read through to find out more.

Buccleuch & Fergus Ewing

Understanding who owns Scotland and how the pattern of landownership is changing is crucial for tackling land injustice in Scotland. The current trend is being driven by powerful financial interests and there are no meaningful measures in place to reverse it. Andy Wightman’s (2024) research reveals who the biggest private landowners are in Scotland today.

Andy Wightman’s Research

Housing

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Scotland’s rural housing crisis is worsening – the current housing system is broken. When communities own the land they live on housing needs can be prioritised, leading to more sustainable, thriving rural places.

Since the late 1970s, Scotland has been heavily reliant on private developers to meet housing needs. This is playing a huge role in the housing crisis because building enough affordable homes to meet the current need is at odds with the duty of these companies: to maximise profits to their shareholders.

When communities own their own land, they can build housing that actually meets housing demand, which is urgently needed.

land & carbon offsetting

Did you know that Scotland’s land is being bought and sold at a large scale for carbon offsetting projects?

Swipe through to understand how this is impacting the land market and local communities, and what can be done to help address these injustices and tackle the climate crisis.

Scotland’s for sale, and carbon offsetting schemes are buying it to sell carbon credits to the likes of Shell, Thales and Barclays.

If you want to find out more, read the article by the Ferret: Revealed: The big firms snapping up Scottish carbon credits (theferret.scot)

Land & Biodiversity

Activities associated with Scotland’s history of concentrated landownership, such as burning moorlands and overgrazing, massively contributed to our biodiversity being depleted.
Now ‘green lairds’ are profiting from Scotland’s unequal land ownership structures and driving up the land prices, while communities who want to restore local biodiversity and create local economic opportunities are struggling to acquire land.
Swipe through to understand more.

Is it a coincidence that Scotland’s biodiversity is so depleted when so few people own the land? This week we’re exploring that link.

Global Land Justice

The legacies of colonialism are still visible in Scotland’s landownership patterns today, and colonial legacies continue to impact the lives of local communities and indigenous peoples all over the world.
Fighting for land reform in Scotland is part of a broader movement of fighting for land justice globally.

Land Reform Bill

There is currently a new Land Reform Bill being discussed in Scottish Parliament. This is a great opportunity, but as it stands the bill is unlikely to have any real impact on land injustice in Scotland.
We don’t want to see this opportunity wasted, especially when we are facing such urgent crises in housing, climate and biodiversity.
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There is currently a new Land Reform Bill being discussed in Parliament, but it is no where near strong enough to make a meaningful difference to Scotland’s unequal and concentrated landownership. Swipe through for everything you need to know.

If you want to stay up to date on what’s happening with the Bill, and land reform more generally, you can sign up to our campaign mailing list on our web page. Get involved!

Information:

If you are interested in our campaign, please contact Josh Doble or Flora Brown.