24 August 2009

Andy Wightman , the respected land reform campaigner, has pointed out that the Land Reform Scotland Act (2003) - which Scots seem to brag about – is in fact a bit of a damp squib. In 5 years only 5 communities have managed to use the act to acquire land. Is this a case of the excellent intentions of the Act being thwarted by lukewarm civil servants?

What has gone wrong? The problem begins with the Act itself. The right to buy is in statute a right to apply to Scottish Ministers to register an interest in buying land if and when land is up for sale. That means that in most cases communities have to think and plan far in advance of any concrete opportunity to bid for land, not least because Ministers have latitude in the time they can take to consider an application. Then the Act gives Ministers acting on the advice of their civil servants wide discretion in considering an application for registration. More applications are rejected than accepted.

As usual Stephen Maxwell sheds light in SCVO's Third Force News and the full article can be viewed online at SENSCOT .

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