Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office, Edinburgh - Briefing Document Six

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Parliamentary Officer:Rev Graham Blount
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Briefing Document No 6 - Page 2 of 4

"Whose Land Is It Anyway?" - Continued.

Community Right to Buy
The proposals for a community right-to-buy (which apply to publicly as well as privately held land) are limited in several ways:

Only when a community body (properly constituted, and with sustainable community development as its primary object) has previously registered an interest in a piece of land does it have rights in regard to that land,

These rights to buy, at an independently-set "market-value", apply only when ownership of land is being transferred, whether by open sale, private sale or other "transfer for value" (although the land to be purchased by the community body need not be the whole area offered for sale),

Purchase by the community is dependent on support in a community ballot, and the right must be exercised within a time scale (six months).

Each of these limitations can be justified and indeed applauded (in terms of safeguarding a range of interests and ensuring a genuine and sustained community commitment), but, particularly in their cumulative effect, they may severely restrict the usefulness of the provision. For example, most of the publicised community schemes of recent years (including the Abriachan forest, chosen by the Executive to launch the White Paper) would not have been covered.

The danger is not simply of setting up an intimidating bureaucracy, or even requiring high levels of foresight in registering an interest in advance. The White Paper defines "community" in terms of those who live or work on the land, which sounds plausible until consideration is given to the meaning of that restriction in a community where many may depend on a substantial estate while only a handful actually live or work on it. Jim Wallace has said there are difficulties of definition here, but they surely must be solved in a direction which broadens the definition to include people substantially affected and which is not so open to exploitation by an unscrupulous landowner.

Further difficulties arise with the restriction to times when land is being sold. Most private land in Scotland has not been exposed for sale in the past century, and there are many other possible circumstances in which the real or beneficial ownership of land is transferred but which would evade the community right-to-buy. There is provision, ultimately, for a right of compulsory purchase where the right-to-buy has been evaded, but the onus is on the community to discover and prove the change of ownership.

(This provision, despite media publicity, is not to allow any general right of compulsory purchase from "bad landowners". The Land Reform Action Plan promises guidance on the use of existing compulsory purchase powers "as a last resort" to assist implementation of local plans or other strategies.)

Further problems for communities may also arise in going through the full procedures and then raising the "market-value" price within six months. Community Land Funds have been established by Scottish Enterprise and by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and there are plans to use Lottery money to set up a Scottish Land Fund which would be open for applications by early 2000. Questions remain about what constraints the latter fund might put on bodies seeking funds.