Making Scotland's Land Ownership Fairer
Scotland has the most unequal landownership pattern in the developed world, with half of Scotland’s privately owned land owned by 0.008% of the population. This concentration in landownership has an adverse effect on Scotland’s communities, making it more difficult to stem depopulation, tackle urban decline and stop wealth leaking out of communities.
Since the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, a series of rights for communities have been introduced. These include the introduction of:
- Community Right to Buy and Crofting Community Right to Buy in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003
- Community right to buy abandoned, neglected or detrimental land (ANDL) and the right to request an asset transfer from certain public bodies in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.
- Right to Buy to Further Sustainable Development in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016
The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 also made Scotland the first country in the world to set out landowners’ responsibilities as well as their rights.
Land reform in Scotland is often described as a journey. It’s one that we are still on, with a new Land Reform Bill and Community Wealth Building Act set to be introduced in this Parliamentary term.
We have a huge opportunity this year with the introduction of the Land Reform Bill. We need to make sure this legislation delivers the conditions we need for further community ownership and to break up monopoly landholdings.
There are also opportunities to refine implementation of existing legislation to improve conditions for prospective community owners and to make it fundamentally easier for communities to buy land and assets.
We are advocating for a robust and ambitious Land Reform Bill which delivers the following legislative changes:
- A Public Interest Test on sales of landholdings of significance in both urban and rural communities
- Placing the Land Rights and Responsibility Statement on a statutory footing with a Public Interest Test on any landholdings not meeting the requirements of the Statement
- Prior notification of sale on identified land and assets for communities
- A total cap on land landownership by an individual or linked companies
- Removing the £1 million notional threshold on the Scottish Land Fund – instead allowing decisions on a case-by-case basis
- Securing amendments to Community Right to Buy legislation – to make it easier to communities to register their interest in land and therefore be able to trigger a Community Right to Buy
Land Reform Resources
Land Reform News
Amendment to our Scotsman opinion piece – 31st October 2024
In an opinion piece in The Scotsman our Policy Manager Josh Doble commented about land value uplifts on Highlands Rewilding estates, these comments have been retracted with a full explanation below.
Natural capital markets in Scotland are at a crossroads
This article was published as an opinion piece by The Scotsman on 31st October 2024: How ‘Green Lairds’ with dreams of vast profits are pricing out local Highland communities.
Guest blog: Is the private financing of rewilding a threat to community empowerment?
We are delighted to share a guest blog from Dr Caitlin Hafferty, University of Oxford who shares some of her recent research on communities and the nature finance markets.