Arran pinpointed as best area for testing new Croft Reform Act

Published on Saturday 4 August 2007 01:57

HAROLD Macmillan, one of the more successful prime ministers of the 20th century, said his paternal grandfather was a crofter who left his native Arran to escape the drudge and poverty of toiling the land.

More recently, Arran has been associated with Jack McConnell. However tempting, it would be wrong to suggest McConnell and Macmillan's links have anything to do with Arran being tipped as test-ground for the new Crofting Reform Act.

One worrying provision (for landowners) of the Crofting Reform Bill was the intention to extend tenure outwith existing crofting counties - Argyll, Caithness, Inverness, Orkney, Ross & Cromarty, Sutherland and Shetland. Indeed, this is what has transpired. While new crofts can, in theory, be developed outside the aforementioned counties, where these locations are has still to be defined.

Arran is the most likely candidate. Its terrain is standard crofting country, its compact size would fit well with the intention of the act, that only smallholdings not exceeding 30 hectares can be converted into crofts. As an island, it has a defined, natural boundary.

And it is a good choice politically; it could be said to belong to the Highlands and Lowlands. And, of course, there is a political dimension to the act.

Despite crofting's couthy-sounding name, the legal complexities underpinning it are a late 19th-century invention. The aims of the crofting movement were admirable, as they promoted the idea of government assistance for Highlanders who did not wish to leave the land, underpinning this with protected tenancies.

But there is a feeling in some quarters that crofting is in part an attempt to redress the Highland clearances - as economic pressures might have made thousands of 19th-century smallholders leave the land voluntarily, had they not already been forced to do so.

In mean terms, there are probably many crofts operating successfully, yet the contribution of the industry to the national economy is tiny.

And some question the net benefits of crofting when set against the amount of public money spent on administration and development, either through the Executive or statutory agencies.

Crofting is, of course, not just about economics - the life-work balance is seen as crucial to its existence. And the act can, in theory, extend this benefit to other parts of Scotland.

Under its present provisions, the act gives the power to maintain a workable balance between all the interests in rural areas; but in less safe hands, it also has the ability to upset that balance greatly. Let us hope that the former prevails.

• Gregor Buick works for law firm Murray Beith Murray