Land Reform in Scotland

An economic commentary on a proposed "community right to buy land"

D. Macmillan, K. Thomson and B. Slee
Department of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom
2001

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In 2001, the Scottish Executive published proposals to introduce substantial reforms to legislation governing land. The most controversial and ambitious of these proposals is to give legally constituted community groups the "right to buy" land when it is placed on the market and to provide public funding to help meet the purchase price. The aim of this article is to review this proposal and to assess the potential of community land ownership to meet the government's economic and social objectives.

On balance, we expect that the prospects for sustainable rural development will be modestly enhanced by the proposals, but only if community social bonds and management arrangements are sufficiently flexible and resilient to withstand difficult external and internal pressure. Because land purchase is expensive, other approaches - such as the transfer of state forestry land or the reintroduction of a tax on sporting estates, which may prove to be cost effective ways of sustaining local economic benefits from land use and management - should also be considered.