Land is still owned by a privileged few

Communities have found right to buy difficult to exercise

Over 60 years ago, a doctor from Sussex bought properties on Raasay from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for £4,000. It was a deal that made no sense – unless connected to plans for a torpedotesting range in the Inner Sound. Dr John Green visited the island twice but obstructed every proposed development, despite the island’s population loss.

He blocked the sale of one fifth of an acre to build a slipway at the favoured sheltered location for the first car ferry to Skye. The ferry was delayed four years. The slipway was finally built at a more exposed site. Green was nicknamed Dr No, managing even to damage the reputation of absentee landowners. That took some doing.

The then Highlands and Islands Development Board resolved to use its powers of compulsory purchase. But lawyers advised the 1965 legislation only gave powers of a local authority wanting to buy small areas to build a school or village hall. The HIDB could not enforce a purchase, no matter how destructive the landowner’s stewardship.

The HIDB, under the Chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Alexander, prepared a paper in 1978 arguing the then Labour government should give it the powers it needed. Cases studies highlighted why.

It read: “These studies illustrate the clash which can, and does, occur between the interests of owner and community in the Highlands and Islands, and emphasise the measure of power, for good or ill, which can be wrought by one private individual over the lives of whole communities. Under present legislation, the only necessary qualification for wielding this power is sufficient means to purchase the land.”

The Tories came to power in 1979. They rejected the HIDB’s arguments, on the ludicrous grounds the body hadn’t used its existing inadequate powers. But after 46 years and governments of different colours, it remains the case that the only necessary qualification for owning significant areas of Scotland is the money to buy them.

There has been some progress. Crofting communities have a right to buy their land whether or not the landowner wants to sell. Non-crofting communities have the right of first refusal if they have registered an interest before the landowner decides to sell. Local communities have a right to buy land abandoned or neglected by the owner. They have a right to buy if they can convince ministers their acquisition of land, mineral and/or salmon fishing rights will further sustainable development.

But a recent study by tireless monitor Andy Wightman shows land ownership has become more concentrated than ever.

Half of all privately owned rural land is held by 433 people and companies. Under Holyrood’s right to buy laws, only 0.24% of rural Scotland had come into community ownership over the past 20 years. Assynt, Eigg and Knoydart buyouts predate the Scottish Parliament. But communities have found the right to buy difficult to exercise, faced by landowners with deep pockets. News of a review of these rights is welcome.

Earlier this month, the Scottish Government also published its proposed land reform bill. Ministers are to be empowered to order the break-up of estates of more than 1,000 hectares being sold, if the public interest would be served. This is to allow more communities, farmers and local businesses to bid for smaller parcels.

It should lower land values and increase diverse ownership. But some campaigners fear it could open the door to more “green lairds”, individual or corporate, inflating land values as they greenwash. Rural land is an attractive investment amid a publicly funded fight against climate change.

It is hard not to think that had the HIDB been given the powers it craved and its successor body Highlands and Islands Enterprise not had its budget repeatedly slashed, things could have been different. A properly funded and empowered statutory agency, committed to intervening to protect economic and social development, would have changed much.

It could have warned how a concentration of private land ownership set Scotland apart from Europe. Some still warn. In 2022, the Scottish Government’s Just Transition Commission warned Scotland’s large estates were an obstacle to delivering the socially and economically fair transition to a net-zero economy. A muscular HIDB/ HIE would almost certainly have acted on the housing crisis that sees thousands of jobs unfilled in places like Skye, as applicants can’t find anywhere to live.

But it wasn’t to be. Meanwhile, in 1979 Dr Green sold his Raasay properties voluntarily to HIDB for £135,000.

≤ David Ross is a veteran Highland journalist, author and a supporter of Community Land Scotland