[Closed] Scottish Land Reform

and force the sale of land if owners are blocking economic development.

The problem is vast tracts of land up there are worth sweet FA without things like shooting, stop that and you won't get enough visitors to keep the current people employed.

and force the sale of land if owners are blocking economic development.

This is my biggest issue too. What is the criteria for "blocking economic development". How is it to be assessed i.e. how would forcing the sale of land improve the economics of an area which, as you say Mike, might have bugger all else other than the current land use. And if the buy-out fails to enhance economic development, can the former landowner sue?

The problem is vast tracts of land up there are [b]worth sweet FA[/b] without things like shooting, stop that and you won't get enough visitors to keep the current people employed.

Is something only to be cherished if it has a financial value?.

As with every situation, there are many sides to the argument. One thing is for sure though, the usual suspects will be along in a minute to turn this into their usual pile of steam.

Is something only to be cherished if it has a financial value?

Absolutely not. But the proposed land reform is pitched this way. Or seems to be, anyway.

[i]Landowners on sporting estates stopped paying business rates in 1994 after being given an exemption by then prime minister John Major's Conservative government.[/i]

This I guess assumes that by reinstating the 'costs' some estates/land will be sold as it is not now economically viable - and also presumably the only folk that will want to buy it will be the local community, but for what I am unsure...

The problem is vast tracts of land up there are worth sweet FA without things like shooting, stop that and you won't get enough visitors to keep the current people employed

Personally, I do have a concern about the 'force em to sell' attitude. it cannot be good for anyone.

Equally, I also believe we need changes in how vast tracts of our land is managed and seen.

Personally, I am of the shoot 80% of the deer, plant woods, lots of woods, and release the Lynx attitude - and then see what the tourists will pay....

On the face of it sounds like opens season for weathy investors (like Mr Trump) to goin and force land to be sold as tehy will build a new Disney land / whatever promise of "econmic growth".

I wonder also how much of this is to do with pushing for mote hyro power?

Is something only to be cherished if it has a financial value?.

As with every situation, there are many sides to the argument. One thing is for sure though, the usual suspects will be along in a minute to turn this into their usual pile of steam.

Bring on the revolution comrades. Good to see the SNP left and right coin is back in action.

economic development hmmmm
- one of the [s]shittest[/s] biggest problems with our society; everyone (I may be exagerating here) thinks they should earn a million quid a week for doing nothing (that may be untrue also but hopefully you catch my drift).
Not everything should be developed for ecomnomic or any other reason otherwise London would be 94,058 mi²
I am not averse to development and I have not read that document but not everything should be used for putting pounds in someones pocket

This surely has more to do with people like the Blackford Estate who own Highland Spring. They refused renewal of various tenant farmers rights' in doing so they remove people from the land as it suits the landowners purpose to have no one on his massive estate where the spring is. So people who can make ailving off that land are unable whilst some rich guy gets richer.

[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/who-owns-scotland-1320933.html ]Independant article - Scottish land onwers[/url]

when I spelled out ecomnomic I was obviously think about cake

Can I also highlight Glen Lochay where landowner has booted off two tenants farmers, and now has MASSIVE herds of deer. You could point a rifle and take out three with the same bullet. Seems he gets a lot of folk who step out the lands, take a shot and then ask for the stuffed head to be delivered, before driving off again...again, we have one rich person and the detriment of local community....

surroundedbyhills - Member
This surely has more to do with people like the Blackford Estate who own Highland Spring.

A very interesting topic, I've been trying to restrain myself from responding to daft comments that are popping up all over facebook all morning.

I really don't like the situation of absentee millionaire landlords holding vast tracts of Scotland, being managed for shooting which involves denuding the landscape of pretty much all wildlife but heather and grouse. Some estates are increasingly hostile to open access too.

I don't like that I can't go salmon fishing on for example the Tay, just because I am not incredibly rich. There are ways of managing the numbers of people that can fish on a river that don't involve pricing 99.9% of the population out. I used to go fishing on a beautiful loch in Assynt with my dad on a boat leased by the local angling association that normal punters like us could afford for a day, but the owners (the notorious Vestey family) stopped letting the association do that and kept it to themselves. All the usual lines trotted out by rich landowners about how much money and many jobs fishin and shootin support are debatable, most of the money goes straight to the rich landowners.

I don't like this false 'country life' where the countryside is a playground for the super rich elite with a range rover, labradors and pink chinos. I'm from the country too and I have a Yaris and wear jeans.

However it needs to be approached with a lot of thought for it to work, and it would be very difficult to reform well. Also, a lot of people don't understand it at all...

One post I've managed not to get involved with from one of the YES groups on facebook summarises that people don't understand the relationship between land and how to make money from it, if people think jobs can magically be created "doing conservation" on just 250 acres then we are all screwed:

"Did anyone hear the phone in on BBC radio 2 yesterday afternoon?the land owner with 250 acres but refuses to use the land as he protects butterflies on it?! Why not open it up for local people to have jobs on their estate doing conservation.ps he only holidays on it few times a year!"

On that note bigjim, what about all those people in the nice bit of Glasgow with big gardens who won't let poor people build houses in them.

It's a funny one, it's not something I've tracked and as someone who usually sees things in black and white I have to say it's not very clear cut. I don't see why shooting estates should be exempt from taxes (and my experience is that they try and dodge tax or reduce outgoings in underhand ways) but similarly I don't see that grabbing land from estates to do just about anything with is a good idea. But each side has positivity and negativity associated with it.

What I suspect will end up happening is that the margins will get tighter in shooting estates, some will close and not much will happen with the land and some land will be taken back by the local community for things like small housing developments, wind farms etc. rather than large scale Trump style developments. A healthy middle ground.

Heard that the land can basically sustain about 80000 deer but there are approx 500000. Kept mainly for pointing rifles at keeping gaming estates going but to the detriment of all othe flora and fauna.

Absolutely agree they should pay the business taxes, majority of landowners are minted no matter what their overpaid accountants manage to return.

On that note bigjim, what about all those people in the nice bit of Glasgow with big gardens who won't let poor people build houses in them.

Quite often, those people will have actually bought and paid for that house and land that comes with it.

A lot of these estates don't fall into that category, they were 'land grabbed' previously. 😀

So whats your land grabbed criteria?
[url= http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28152477 ]Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has called on the country's remaining white farmers to cede land to black people.[/url]

We're not talking about another far off country here though, well, all of us except you!. 😆

This is the problem

Coffey is estimated to have earned £170m in the previous year after increasing by 51% the value of his emerging markets fund.[10]

In November 2010 Coffey bought Ardfin Estate, a 12,000-acre sporting estate on the island of Jura in Scotland.[11] The purchase attracted controversy and concern over Coffey's decision to close the estate's public gardens, whose 2,500 visitors a year formed a significant source of income for Jura.[12] In 2011, a spokesperson for Coffey said that his "full intention" was to re-open the gardens during 2012, but the gardens have remained closed.[13] However, plans have been unveiled for a new 18-hole private golf course on the estate [14]

Nobeerinthefridge - Member
all of us except you!.

Not at all but with all the best laid intentions there are unintended consequence. Who decides what is what? A committee of the polit bureau? What is economically better? What percentage is it better by, who determines the market rate for the seized property? Is it just a charter where if you know who to pay off you can acquire land?
Takes a lot of safe guards

In 2011, a spokesperson for Coffey said that his "full intention" was to re-open the gardens during 2012, but the gardens have remained closed.[13] However, plans have been unveiled for a new 18-hole private golf course on the estate [14]

Personally, I am of the shoot 80% of the deer, plant woods, lots of woods, and release the Lynx attitude - and then see what the tourists will pay....

Heard that the land can basically sustain about 80000 deer but there are approx 500000. Kept mainly for pointing rifles at keeping gaming estates going but to the detriment of all othe flora and fauna.

I've been thinking about this since riding through the Croik Estate on Sunday. I have never seen so many deer. Hundreds upon hundreds, dozens of fences and gates. I don't know the extent of the land that the estate covers and how the deer are spread in shooting season but it looked like fish in a barrel. Less hunting wild animals more like farming shooting cattle. The shame is I became blase about stags bounding before me after a couple of miles.

I f@*#ing HATE golf courses. Elitist, selfish, ego massaging tracts of land that exclude the majority of normal folk. (I appreciate that the Scottish experience of this is [i]slightly[/i] different, but it seems it's going that way up there, too.

Mike, yes I think you are, private golf course would infer. Clubhouse etc, ok a few jobs for some people and money for the estate, but like trump, not helping the community

but it could generate far more income than opening the garden so be the best choice. As with any rule like this it's a bad idea.

out of interest how do you quantify helping the community and how does that relate to pound/acre. It could easily be said that the grouse estates do a hell of a lot for the community (original not incomers)

I think the Scottish public may rethink this community ownership idea when they realise that owning land isn't free, there are significant maintenance costs. The sporting estate tax break was introduced to support local jobs and to prevent unique landscapes and natural environments being turned over to commercial forestry.

This is a classic SNP vote winning strategy, lots of voters in cities like Glasgow who I would wager rarely go into the country side.

@onehundred - do you have a link, that all sounds rather implausable. People pay a lot of money to go deer stalking not to shoot cattle. 80,000 vs 500,000 would mean 420,000 deers shot per year on a single estate, not likely. You couldn't kill that many with a machine gun.

I am all for the idea. Landowners need to up their game or face been bought out. Give the local communicates a chance to develop for the benefit of the many as opposed to the few.

It can work well, however I am aware that it is also difficult to make a good go of it.

The UK is run by, and for, economic rent seekers of one form or another. Landowners chief amongst them. The smartest move that landowners and their various Westminster enablers have done in recent times is to convince Joe Public that they are on the same side, if Joe can get even as little as a studio flat in some crap town.

An impartial observer of the UK from another galaxy would be forced to conclude that the colossal technical advancement seen over the recent centuries would mean that housing would be provided at nominal cost. But we know this is not the case and it is no accident either.

The UK is becoming more dependent on inheritances and privelidge via increasing essential costs like housing. Land monopolies via ownership subsidies and planning restrictions play their part in maintaining and extending this situation.

The ultimate aim of this is to get you, your kids and your grandkids to give up as much of your productive output as possible for the purposes of keeping the biggest benefit claimants, landowners, in clover. UK obsession with house prices is the best example of how easily this agenda is swallowed by the public. "Great, I've 'made' £100k on my house but my kids/grandkids are ****ed. Oh well nevermind I'm sure they'll be fine of they stop buying an ipod every month."

OK so what would you do with massive tracts of the Highlands?

OK so what would you do with massive tracts of the Highlands?

Repopulate the glens and work them like they used to.

The myth that most landowners are 'minted' is just that. Some indeed may be. Some may be comfortable, in the same way as any other middle class family. Some may have no money at all.

My family's estate makes my mum less than the average UK wage, and my dad earns nothing. His income is from other investments, but they are certainly [b]not[/b] 'minted' or 'rich'. When my dad retires, capital gains tax will force him to sell off half of the estate to pay it (a sizable 6-figure sum, not payable in installments), effectively wiping out any profit the estate does make. I'm currently trying to think of how I can earn a living from what's left and am struggling (although I do have some STW-friendly ideas 😉 ). I could sell to the local community (or a wealthy Arab) but they'd be faced with the exact same problem. Land does not, by default, make you cash wealthy.

Our family is one of many in the region who do not make much money from their estates. It's a myth that they/we are all rolling in cash and don't give a **** about either the community or the land. That's not to say there aren't bad eggs, of course, but blanket criticism of landowners is based not in fact, but prejudice. In my biased opinion, obviously...

I'd be interested to know how much income, if anything, is derived from the public purse.

It's not really a positive if the local community plaster the area with houses, golf courses or wind farms.

I think the Scottish public may rethink this community ownership idea when they realise that owning land isn't free, there are significant maintenance costs. The sporting estate tax break was introduced to support local jobs and to prevent unique landscapes and natural environments being turned over to commercial forestry.

This is a classic SNP vote winning strategy, lots of voters in cities like Glasgow who I would wager rarely go into the country side.

Yeah I kind of agree, certainly all the comments on the Yes facebook groups seem to think you can just magically generate jobs out of land, the reality is a lot harder. Same thing during the indy ref with the oil and gas, everyone saying there are secret oil fields and huge wealth, the reality proving quite the opposite.

There is definitely an issue with the big absentee landowners with barren shooting estates that should be looked at and addressed, but with a level head and some actual thought and planning.

Take down the fences, reintroduce bears, wolves, beavers and lynx and let nature return to take its course would be my first step 🙂

On that note bigjim, what about all those people in the nice bit of Glasgow with big gardens who won't let poor people build houses in them.

that's a bit of a silly comparison really.

I'd be interested to know how much income, if anything, is derived from the public purse.

Is that addressed to me, or landowners in general, or...? And what are you counting as 'derived from the public purse'; do you mean tax breaks or handouts?

Take down the fences, reintroduce bears, wolves, beavers and lynx and let nature return to take its course ...

...while increasing public access 😉

Kit- To you of course. Tax breaks, handouts, subsidies from the EU or elsewhere. All of it. Nothing personal btw.

I don't claim all landowners are massively rich, I claim that many are enjoying a privelidged position only as a result of handouts from the taxpayer and a system which is designed to protect the status quo.

The myth that most landowners are 'minted' is just that. Some indeed may be. Some may be comfortable, in the same way as any other middle class family. Some may have no money at all.

Yeah, but a lot are very very rich, and manage the land for other very rich people. This is why it is a complicated issue, nothing is clear cut.

...while increasing public access

yeah why not, works in Europe and the Americas where they still have these animals. Bears are regularly spotted at Whistler, why not at Glentress 🙂

@mediocre

Taxpayer subsidy, aside from CAP, is probably linked to wind farms etc. quite ironic really given SNP bleating.

What is the posative effect of rewilding with bears, lynx and other large animals? Only to reduce the deer population? What other envirmental and / or econmical improvments would they offer?

Kit- To you of course. Tax breaks, handouts, subsidies from the EU or elsewhere. All of it. Nothing personal btw.

I don't know everything about it (yet), but as far as I'm aware income from shooting (less than most people's bikes cost on here) and forestry is tax free, and of course business-related expenses are tax deductible same as any other business. The estate received a grant from the Scottish Government to build 8 homes for affordable rent, which meet the highest possible energy standards, meaning total energy bills in the region of a few hundred quid a year. Other than that, as far as I'm aware we don't get any handouts. Perhaps the farmers who lease from us get EU subsidies, but they are not the concern of the estate nor impact our income.

I claim that many are enjoying a privelidged position only as a result of handouts from the taxpayer and a system which is designed to protect the status quo.

If you think that having to sell half of what we own to pay tax to the Government is a handout to maintain the status quo, then I'm afraid you're wrong. Perhaps it's different on other estates, but I doubt it. Capital gains or inheritance tax must be paid somehow, and as I said, estates aren't cash rich enough to cough up 6 (or 7) figure sums of money at the drop of a hat.

Fair enough, I don't expect you to have the full figures at your fingertips, or indeed feel any compulsion to share them on the internet.

At the same time, being given public money to build homes to generate rent is the sort of stuff I'm talking about to be frank. It's crackers, and a completely inappropriate use of public funds in my view. If tenant farmers are eligible for subsidies then that will of course affect the rents chargeable, just as private rents for housing are swayed by local authority housing benefit rates.

I don't wish to take this further because you have been decent enough to be open and that is to your credit.

Yes, Scotland doesn't want rich people. They'll be able to reduce reduce wealth inequality by having all the rich people leave.

I don't wish to take this further because you have been decent enough to be open and that is to your credit.

don't come waltzing in here with your reasonable attitude and be all reasonable 😛

What is the posative effect of rewilding with bears, lynx and other large animals? Only to reduce the deer population? What other envirmental and / or econmical improvments would they offer?

Short answer is google it for the long answer. But yes you would then have deer hunted by their natural predators rather than by toffs in mustard chinos. The environmental one answers itself really! The Scottish landscape is largely totally unnatural and a result of man's activities, clearing the trees for timber and sheep grazing, which have no chance of regrowing with unnaturally high deer populations. Economically there are various positives, for example tourism, where the money flows into local economy rather than wealthy landowner's pockets as it currently does. it's not a magic make everyone rich wand though, but I don't think there is one.

Also not all super rich landowners are bad, read about Coignafearn estate owned by tetrapak heiress Sigrid Rausing for example, her battle with her neighbouring absentee billionaire landowner, and plans to cull deer to support conservation and subsequent protests from the deer hunting community.

The Land Reform Bill will end tax relief for shooting estates - Good

and force the sale of land if owners are blocking economic development - land grab

A short article on the land reform bill [url= http://www.thenational.scot/news/andy-wightman-land-reform-bill-doesnt-do-everything-that-has-to-be-done-but-its-still-an-important-moment.4433?utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_term=Autofeed#link_time=1435125701 ]Andy Wightman[/url]

So, let's get this right - the suggestion is that either

I) the communities, or
II) the taxpayer

All of whom are already free to roam across almost every inch of the land,

Takes out huge loans to buy back land off the landowners (and before the radicals get any ideas, let's remember that article 1 protocol 1 of the ECHR means that they would have to compensate the landowner at full value for every inch of land)

So you would be borrowing money off the rich, via the bankers (with interest), to give back to the very rich, for land that is in most cases financially unproductive (certianly not productive enough to cover the cost of loans and interest) that you can already use anyway.

And this is supposed to be popular? 😯

jambalaya - Member
Yes, Scotland doesn't want rich people. They'll be able to reduce reduce wealth inequality by having all the rich people leave.

At the same time, being given public money to build homes to generate rent is the sort of stuff I'm talking about to be frank. It's crackers, and a completely inappropriate use of public funds in my view.

In rural Dumfriesshire there is a chronic shortage of affordable housing. Low income rural families are priced out of the market by those from affluent areas of the UK buying second homes, etc. Neither local authority nor private house builders are making any real efforts to build affordable housing for local families.

The rental income from these homes covers loan repayments and maintenance only, and will do so for the next 30 years. No (or little) profit will be made in that time. After that, then yes this will be income. You're entitled to argue that we shouldn't receive public money to (ultimately) line our pockets, but at the end of the day the estate has provided affordable housing (not just cheap rent) to local families, which is more than can be said for many other businesses whose sole motive is making money.

If you're interested, the BBC came and spoke to one of the families for a programme they did a couple of years ago. Here's the video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01g4jxg

And this is supposed to be popular?

Most people frothing at the mouth with excitement haven't thought about the practicalities as you have 😉

The taxpayer is paying for the land in one way or another anyway through the CAP, Forestry Grants, Windfarm Grants or tax exception on sporting estates. have a look at the Duke of Bucleuch's income from the public purse. He' s one of Scotland's largest landowners and one of the country's richest men and yet he takes and takes from the public purse whilst resisting open access regularly. His estates aren't managed for their long term sustainability. I'd rather the same public money was ploughed into sustainable mange,net of the land, see the Eco logical regeneration of the wet desert (Frank Fraser Darling's descrition of the Highlands post clearances) and see people return to the land to start building small businesses and richer lives.

Cheers Kit that's an interesting link and a good example of landowners working for the common good.

The sporting estate tax break was introduced to support local jobs and to prevent unique landscapes and natural environments being turned over to commercial forestry

You do know that the environment you see around you in scotland is not natural right?

The sporting estate tax break was introduced to support local jobs and to prevent unique landscapes and natural environments being turned over to commercial forestry
You do know that the environment you see around you in scotland is not natural right?

Quite

OK so what would you do with massive tracts of the Highlands?

Repopulate the glens and work them like they used to.

Don't knock it oldbloke it's for the good of the Party, some people will just have to be grateful that they got rid of the rich people making money and employing people. It's a small price to pay to be there as a weird interactive mass tourist exhibit.

Without proposing what is "best interest for the community" what is "better economic use" or anything else it's a land grab. Once they have the land doing anything useful with it is highly unlikely. Perhaps a test area where they could take over something that somebody wants out of and show off how they will make a much better job of it. Reintroducing wild animals doesn't exactly sound like a great idea.

I don't see how the enviromental benifit of reintriducing larege wild animals just answers itself, I think it would end up liek mink, and you would just be managing a different type of animal. The introduction of large predators seems mroe to do with making people feel better. Of course the landscape is largley not as it would be with out human mangment, it still would be, just different, and it would still need to be payed for by subsidy. Over population of deer does seem to be a problem I agree.

Over population of deer does seem to be a problem I agree.

Deer populations are overseen and culls set by SNH, if an estate manager had an overpopulation of deer he would have them come down on him like a ton of bricks, then move in and do it for him and send him the bill.

The truth is that due to the herding and seasonal wide ranging behaviour of even small populations of red deer, [b]establishing[/b] woodland through either planting or natural regeneration without fencing in upland areas is remarkably difficult. NTS tried it at Mar Lodge and it was an abject failure, ([url= http://www.nts.org.uk/site/docs/news/marlodgefinal_complete_18-11-11.pdf ]report here[/url]) as it's not a simple metric, if you hammer the red deer population then there are feedback cycles that sees overgrowth in the heather (collapse of the Heather structure with negative impacts on bird species diversity such as grouse, ptarmigan, caper and smaller species like pipits, this has a knock on effect on raptor populations) plus an increase in fire loads leading to the inevitable, which destroys all the trees you were trying to grow) plus an explosion in the roe deer population to fill the food gap created by the lack of reds. Reintroduction of the Lynx would only see a minor effect on this.

personally I believe that the only solution here is small block fencing, enclosing thousands of small coupes of 0.01-0.5Ha both outside and inside the woodland edge to allow them to regenerate, rather than the large scale fencing that creates a hard fenced woodland/moorland edge and denies deer their natural behaviour and historic overwintering.

end up liek mink, and you would just be managing a different type of animal. The introduction of large predators seems mroe to do with making people feel better

Mink are invasive aliens, released from fur farms by total morons, and have done terrible damage. Large predators would be [b]re[/b]introduction, they were here long before we foolish humans came along and made a complete mess of it all.

Large predators would be reintroduction, they were here long before we foolish humans came along and made a complete mess of it all.

Something it shares with pretty much the whole of the UK.

And another area where Scotland could lead the way.

The older I get more I have a problem with the whole concept of private ownership of the Highlands and similar places.

And to place wealth creation (let alone wealth creation for one already rich person) as the prime determining factor for use of such land is simply moronic.

what are they for

Why does everything have to be perceived to serve a direct purpose for humans to have a right to be there or justify their existence? What are midges for? What are birch trees for?

They are all part of the natural ecosystem which evolved here over a very long time and worked very well until we came along and removed key parts of it, like trees and large predators, and now we all stand around arguing how to 'fix' things like deforestation and deer numbers, and the money involved, when it all worked in a perfect balance before we messed it up. Have a read about ecosystems and ecosystem services, it's all very interesting.

Agreed Chakaping.

I think the whole 'Land grab' thing is just the usual headline nonsense btw, Can't see this happening in anything other than the most extreme cases.

I hope they do something about the whole second home issue as well, It's got to the stage that pretty much all of the young people on Arran for instance can't afford a house there, but loads of places sit for the vast majority of the year with no one in them. Not exactly great for the local economy.

That doesn't sit right either.

o place wealth creation (let alone wealth creation for one already rich person) as the prime determining factor for use of such land is simply moronic.

It's not an issue of wealth creation, very few upland areas are substantially profitable (certianly not as an ROI) rather than simply covering their own costs of care and maintenance through income generation - Tourism sounds wonderful as an alternative income for landowners, but it's seasonal and very difficult to capitalise, you certianly don't get many hikers willing to pay a thousand pounds a day. Forestry takes too long to pay back, without the tax breaks it wouldn't, Sheep only make money if stocked at unsustainable levels, again reliant on subsidy, bugger all else grows there except wind farms, and that's just another subsidy crop.

You would have to be bloody mad to buy most upland estates, as a get rich quick idea it's about the worst in the world.

Never mind what we do with it, just finding out who owns everything (the main drive of the bill afaik) would be a great start.

Nobeerinthefridge - Member

I think the whole 'Land grab' thing is just the usual headline nonsense btw, Can't see this happening in anything other than the most extreme cases.

That's how it feels but tbh good laws should legistlate for that, we've got too much history in the UK of laws being passed to do one thing then instantly being used to do something else, or of unintended consequences. I reckon the spirit is pretty clear but that's no good.

matt_outandabout - Member
...Personally, I do have a concern about the 'force em to sell' attitude. it cannot be good for anyone.

That's better than the option the people who were turfed off the land had.

The glens used to be hooching with people. Get off the beaten track and you can see the remains everywhere.

Break up the estates, get more small landholders in.

But first let's stop subsidising the estates. In this time of Austerity there should be no welfare for the wealthy.

I grew up in the highlands, I know intimately the stories of the clearances and in fact two great uncles participated in one of the last tenant land grabs in scotland. I also work alongside landowners both big and small, crofters and farmers to get the best out of the land.
I see both sides of the argument, but as a crofter I also see enormous challenges put in our way by a scottish government entrenched in the pie in the sky townie ideals that insist that they can do a better job of running the highlands. The recent experience for instance of the AECS ( agri environmental climate scheme) which was supposed to be "light touch" has shown how far removed policy makers are from reality - it was if I were cynical, intended to completely dissuade applicants to the scheme.
Now that I am on my high horse I will turn to community land ownership. To those of you misguided souls who think it is some sort of panacea then think again. Even the most successful and yes high profile community ownership schemes employ very few, AND they usually run out of cash once the feel good support from goverment dries up. Now here is the interesting part for those of you who think community ownership is a great idea. When they run out of cash and will inevitably have to sell up - they can't! Legislation stops them putting the land back into private ownership. Then who steps in? Well try john Muir trust, RSPB, or some other quango. You think there is no investment now, then try these people as landlords, they will really make the highlands a desperate place to live. They are already working hand in hand with landowners to tie them in knots, reduce public access to the land through fenced in woodland schemes and intent on "rewinlding" the highlands.
Yes there are massive landowners who would love it if we were removed from their estates and had the hills to themselves, but a considerable amount of landowners run their estates at a loss anyway. They employ people in places that communities simply could not, and in more cases than not can afford to invest sizeable chunks of their own cash in landscapes they are as much a part of as we are.
In summary, it will require dialogue, people who listen, and people who a bit more informed than some of our present "policy makers"

epicyclo - Member
hooching

In this time of Austerity there should be no welfare for the wealthy.

Interesting response sangobegger. Legislation sounds like it could be positive if managed properly, but not a one size fits all solution. I am sure there are good large estate owners as well as bad.

Also, the glens were hoaching during a time of subsistence farming, when people did not expect infrastucture, roads, power, gas, hot water, telephone, or internet. Would take a big shift to move work nearer these areas to coax people there.

Sorry to steal your words, but this would suit most things:

[i]by a government entrenched in the pie in the sky ideals that insist that they can do a better job of running anything [/i]

Lets ignore how the landowners got their land, which tbh isn't that much different the world over - 'clearances' of the Highlands is no different to the Enclosure Acts of England.

And then look as to what would actually occur; cost to the taxpayer is my guess - not sure in what form though (eg direct or indirect).

Before we get people on about land owners not being wealthy

Well there's little point, since a few of us have already pointed out that land is not that profitable, yet those with the chips on their shoulders won't listen.

If all your wealth is tied up in land, then you're not rich until you sell it...at which point you're no longer a landowner 😉

In summary, it will require dialogue, people who listen, and people who a bit more informed than some of our present "policy makers"

therein lies the problem...