Scotland’s land reform journey is stalling – can the new Land Reform Bill achieve what it is setting out to do?

Scotland’s experience of land reform is often described as a journey. If that is the case, then our journey is stalling and all but ground to a halt, according to Community Land Scotland’s Josh Doble.

Community ownership of land has flatlined since 2016/17 when the last piece of land reform legislation was introduced – only 16 hectares of land went into community ownership in 2021/22.

Less than 3 per cent of Scotland’s land is in community ownership and patterns of private landownership remain highly concentrated.

Progress has slowed dramatically because the existing legislation is not working and soaring land prices make ownership the preserve of a privileged elite.

The Scottish Government will shortly be introducing a new Land Reform Bill to Parliament. Current indications are that it will have no meaningful impact.

Potentially influential reforms only apply to land over 3,000 hectares – only 1.1 per cent of land transactions (eight in total) between 2020-22 would have been impacted. Legislation applying to such a meagre amount of Scotland cannot deliver significant reform.

When community rights to buy land were first introduced in 2003, it was a landmark statement by the new Scottish Parliament, which could pursue a more progressive and socially just agenda, moving Scotland away from its archaic and unjust system of landownership.

Communities moved to own land and assets around them and transform their futures. But 20 years on, the once pioneering legislation is no longer fit for purpose and is tripping up communities.

Community Land Scotland wants it to be made easier for community groups to purchase land

Those opposed to community purchases have learned how to play the system. From 2018 to 2022, there were five successful applications on average annually. However, from 2003 to 2017 there were triple this number.

Since 2017 none of the necessary ‘late’ applications that allow communities to respond to unexpected sales have been approved.

The legislation is failing communities in Scotland’s most resource-deprived areas, where dealing with onerous legislation and bureaucratic systems can be even more challenging. Community Land Scotland will be publishing evidence on this soon.

Scottish land prices are soaring, driven by speculative investor interest in commercial forestry, carbon credits and land-banking. In areas of the south of Scotland, land prices have increased by over 450 per cent in just four years.

Josh Doble is policy manager for Community Land Scotland, a charity and membership organisation which supports current and prospective community landowners

Scotland’s lack of regulation over the land market fuels investor speculation – the public interest in the potential use of the land doesn’t figure.

Communities cannot afford inflated land values, and the Land Fund cannot cope with a land market that can see small estates selling for multiple millions.

Welcome increases planned for the Land Fund annually don’t begin to keep pace with market forces. Bold, robust legislation and regulation can ask important public interest questions to impact the speculative buying up of Scotland.

The Scottish Government has said it wants to diversify Scotland’s land ownership, to combat the private land monopolies, stop wealth extraction and build community wealth, and deliver a just transition to a low-carbon future for the coming generations.

Few would want to see these ambitions thwarted by legislation lacking the necessary imagination and ambition for real change.

- Josh Doble is policy manager for Community Land Scotland, a charity and membership organisation that supports current and prospective community landowners