£100 a month levy plan for crofts left vacant

Published on Tuesday 19 January 2010 18:02

ABSENTEE crofters should be made to pay an annual £1,200 fee for not living on the land, with the money used to help others start up, MSPs will be told today.

Absenteeism is a long-running problem facing regulators with an average rate of 10 per cent among the near 18,000 crofts.

As it launched the Crofting Reform Bill in December, the Scottish Government announced it was putting an onus on the Crofters' Commission to get tough on the problem.

The Scottish Parliament's rural affairs and environment committee will today hear evidence on the bill from Professor Jim Hunter, former chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise and a founder of the Scottish Crofters Union (now the Scottish Crofting Federation).

He said his idea would sweep away "all the plethora of ineffective and hugely expensive rules, regulations, laws, processes and appeals procedures in relation to absenteeism".

The Reform Bill aims to set up a Register of Croft, with each tenant or owner-occupier required to re-register annually. The proposed cost of registering is 80 to 130.

Prof Hunter suggests owners and tenants who live on their crofts pay a maximum of 5 but absentees should pay 1,200.

"This would be high enough to create a financial incentive, as opposed to a legal requirement, for absentee situations to be resolved by the absentees involved", he said.

He believes this would raise more than 2 million a year, which could be used to support new entrants to crofting.

"Obviously, an absentee could hang on indefinitely in such circumstances. But most, at a cost of 100 a month, would not."

Prof Hunter, now director of the Centre of History, part of the prospective University of the Highlands and Islands, will tell the MSPs that people becoming absentee crofters through inheritance could be allowed one year at the nominal or zero charge before the higher annual charge kicked in. The fee could also be increased if it proved ineffective at the levels suggested.

He said the suggestion may work better than proposals in the Reform Bill "which merely advocates still more of the same old legalities applied by the same old administrative structure".

Prof Hunter said the Crofters Commission, formed in 1955, failed to set up an effective crofts register over more than half a century and has therefore failed to deal with absenteeism.

He also said land being decrofted should be recorded in the register and attract a levy of 20 to 25 per cent of the developmental value. A proportion of the resulting revenues may then be used to help with the creation of new crofts and settlements.

Patrick Krause, chief executive of the Scottish Crofting Federation, likened the idea to local authorities increasing council tax on holiday homes and said that it merits further study.

"If people are away for a long time to earn more money, but want to retain a foothold in the Highlands and Islands, then why shouldn't they pay more, with the money going to help new entrants to crofting?" he said.

"There would need to be discussion regarding how much they would pay. There would also have to be an appeals system so that, for example, a crofter who has gone away to look after a sick relative, wouldn't be penalised."

Drew Ratter, chairman of the Crofters Commission, declined to comment.