KATE FORBES: Reforms on land could bring huge positive changes
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The new Land Reform Bill, which will be introduced during this parliament, seeks to address long-standing concerns about the scale and concentration of land ownership in Scotland, improve transparency of land ownership and empower local communities by creating more opportunities for community ownership and engagement.
There are three ways it can capture that.
The first issue is when and how community bodies are given notice of a landlord’s intention to sell so that they can be involved from the very outset.
The Bill is likely to include the introduction of a public interest test when large-scale landholdings are to be sold or transferred and a requirement on owners to give prior notice to community bodies of any intention to sell.
However, the proposed threshold at which this is initiated is for large-scale land holdings, at 3000 hectares.
Other organisations like HIE have suggested it should be lowered to 1000 hectares and others have made the case for 500 hectares.
Of course, consideration must be given to working family farms who should not be unfairly penalised.
But if most sales are excluded from this test, then I’m not sure how meaningful it will really be – often it’s the smaller plots that make the biggest difference to a landlocked community.
The second issue is how community bodies navigate engagement with private landlords, as equals at the very least, rather than poor relations of the private market.
Sale of land is about so much more than financial returns. It is also about economic prosperity, social cohesion and equal opportunities for everybody who lives on or near the land. The key is giving community groups much greater agency.
In a recently published paper, Community Land Scotland have put forward the idea of a Thriving Community Partnership model, a pattern of working that has been shaped by real community experiences of navigating deals between communities and private landowners.
At the heart of the CLS model is the important notion that community benefit should be far more extensive than a token payment.
Thriving Community Partnership Agreements would establish communities as a core part of the consenting and funding processes, not just the recipient of funds.
Crucially, the proposed agreement would be legally binding between the owner and the local community with the specific built-in aim of ensuring that thriving local community can not only develop but be sustained into the future.
The third issue is how land reform can address all the many and varied opportunities and challenges inherent in every community’s existence.
Community ownership is not guaranteed to succeed, and land reform isn’t the be all and end all.
The real question is how to revitalise the local economy, grow the population sustainably, and attract investment in infrastructure – in both urban and rural communities across Scotland today.
To that end, we must continue to support communities to realise their ambitions to deliver in those areas that will address many of these challenges head on.
That is why purpose and mission for the land matters just as much as who owns the land.
Land reform absolutely needs to accelerate as a matter of social justice, and the Bill is the next big opportunity to do that.
If it is timid, it won’t release the benefits to communities. If it’s bold and meaningful, it could be transformational.
But land ownership is just the first test – the ultimate test is how communities reach wider goals of sustainability, prosperity and equality.
Kate Forbes (SNP) is MSP for Badenoch.
