Isles communities urged to become biggest landowners in Scotland
Crofters "should lodge buy-out bids day Land Reform Bill becomes law"
Crofting communities throughout the Western Isles were this week urged to take
advantage of the long-awaited land reform legislation as soon as it is on the
statute books, probably next year, to become the biggest landowners in the whole
of Scotland. In all, it is claimed, they could take over half-a-million acres
currently in private hands.
The call came from the Western Isles Labour Party, who want communities
throughout the islands to make simultaneous bids the day the Bill becomes law
using its radical new right to buy for crofting communities.
In a joint statement, Western Isles MP Calum MacDonald, MSP Alasdair Morrison
and the five-strong group of Labour councillors on Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
said:
"If we act together then the ordinary people of the Western Isles - crofters,
fishermen and other tenants - collectively can become the biggest non-government
landowners in Scotland, owning more land than the combined private estates of
the Countess of Sutherland, the Dukes of Atholl, Westminster, Roxburghe, Argyll
and the Queen."
"The Western Isles can light the beacon for radical and sweeping land reform
right across the Highlands. We need to prepare and plan now to take all the
privately-owned crofting estates from Barra to the Butt of Lewis into community
ownership."
"That is why we are today calling upon Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and Highlands
and Islands Enterprise to start making preparations now so that local
communities throughout the islands can use their new rights under the Land
Reform Bill to reclaim their heritage as custodians and owners of their own
land. We want everything to be in place, including the funding required, to
allow simultaneous bids to go ahead. The transfer of land from private hands
into community ownership should begin the day that the Land Reform Bill becomes
law."
Labour point out that three-quarters of the total land area of the Western Isles
is crofting land and all of that is eligible for immediate purchase and transfer
into community ownership.
Under the expected provisions of the Bill, crofting communities will not have to
wait for private landowners to put their estates on the market.
The statement continued: "Crofting communities will be able to invoke their
right to buy at any time and we believe that that can and should be done the
very same day that the Bill becomes law. The Western Isles boasts the oldest and
biggest example of community ownership in Scotland but the 69,400 acres owned by
the Stornoway Trust is dwarfed by the 525,000 acres that local communities in
the Western Isles will have the right to own once the Bill is passed."
"It is time to put 19th century patterns of land ownership behind us and embrace
a 21st century model that puts local communities firmly in control of their own
resources and their own destinies."
"The pattern of land ownership in the islands is not a harmless relic from a
bygone age. It represents a serious distortion of our social and economic life
and the time has come to consign it to history. Land ownership is now within the
reach of ordinary communities with a genuine social, economic and environmental
interest in developing the islands."
Labour councillor Norman Macdonald, party chairman in the Western Isles and a
member of the community-owned Bhaltos Trust, said: "We cannot emphasise too
strongly the need for communities to come together and register interest once
this important piece of legislation reaches the statute book. Crofting
communities are especially well placed and the fact that valuation will be
carried out by an independent valuer will ensure that prices are fair and
reasonable."
"The Stornoway Trust is an excellent example of how community land ownership can
operate to the benefit of the community and the growing number of communities
opting to own their estates is a manifestation of past problems with private
ownership but, more importantly, hope and confidence in the future."
© West Highland Free Press www.whfp.com
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