Call for right-to-buy change to beat crofting speculators

Published on Thursday 16 August 2007 00:21

LANDOWNERS have called for a change to right-to-buy laws to stop speculators selling off croft land for housing.

In its response to the setting up of an inquiry into crofting, the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association (SRPBA), formerly the Scottish Landowners' Federation, is scathing of the "damage" done to crofting areas by individual rights to buy croft land.

The association says the fact the right to buy has been in existence since 1976 "is no good or logical reason for it to continue".

Instead, it recommends that right-to-buy should only apply to the site on which the crofter's house is built and not the croft land.

The SRPBA questions why no place has been given to a traditional crofting landowner on the committee.

It also takes issue with the "highly prejudicial and offensive inference" in the consultation where it is asked whether "crofters need protection from community landlords, as they did from private landlords?"

Johnnie Mackenzie, the chairman of the association's crofting group, said: "This displays a disappointing ignorance of the role of crofting landowners in modern Scotland. Traditional crofting landlords and crofters actually have very much more in common than separates them and this should be more widely recognised.

"Landowners can have a positive role in modern crofting communities, but we need to shed this historical baggage in order to see the potential."

The SRPBA says crofting should continue as a form of land tenure "but fit for purpose in a modern Scotland".

It argues that extending crofting outwith the traditional seven crofting counties, as proposed under reform plans last year, would dilute the funding available.

It says the bravest way forward for crofting would be to "retain tenure and regulation, but to repeal all current legislation and start afresh to develop an appropriate, simplified regulatory framework".

The issue of selling off croft land on the open market was highlighted last year during debates on the Crofting Reform Bill. Critics said it did nothing to stop speculation and called for improved legislation to prevent it.

It was feared widespread buying and selling of crofts could result in the depopulation of some communities and the destruction of the crofting system.

In the end, the bill was largely thrown out and a committee of inquiry has been set up to look at the future of crofting, including selling croft land.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that croft land bought from the Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed's Highland estate under right-to-buy legislation has been sold on for nearly ten times the price paid.

At the same time, an absentee crofter in Harris raised concerns after offering the land for housing developments.

At present crofting is unique to Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, Sutherland, Ross-shire, Inverness-shire and Argyll.

However, there are proposals to extend this beyond the seven counties, initially into Arran.