Land Reform

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