Scottish land: Six community groups receive £2.5m funding for developments amid concern buyouts are 'plateauing'

A vacant industrial building on an Outer Hebridean island, a stretch of land earmarked for affordable housing on Scotland’s west coast and a village pub are among multiple sites to be officially taken over by communities thanks to a new funding announcement.

The Scotsman can exclusively reveal more than £2.5 million from the Scottish Land Fund (SLF) has been allocated to six different community initiatives across the country to enable them to purchase property and land.

The announcement comes amid concern over the barriers communities face to acquiring assets in what is becoming an ever increasingly competitive and costly rural market. A report from the Scottish Land Commission (SLC) released last month showed wealthy corporations and forestry companies competing for land was one of the main reasons behind prices seeing a dramatic increase.

Scotland land: 'Secret sales' and wealthy corporations make up most Scottish land sales, study finds

An image of some of the land that has been purchased and gifted to the Tayvallich Initiative. Picture Tayvallich Initiative

It has prompted land groups and campaigners to call for stronger policy for a better regulated market in the coming Land Reform Bill due to be tabled later this year.

Among the community groups to have benefited from the latest SLF cash injection has been the Tayvallich Initiative in Mid Argyll. The west-coast organisation has been awarded £565,608 to purchase land that will bring its total ownership to 150 acres.

Tayvallich’s chairman Martin Mellor said the new purchased area would be used to create housing for affordable rent in the area. “We hope that this long-term project will encourage a good balance in the area between tourism/holidays alongside an established year-round community,” he said.

Isle of Eigg celebrates 26 years of community ownership since historic buyout

Corstorphine Community Centre at 5 Kirk Loan

Two community projects in Orkney have also been awarded some £450,000 between them for affordable housing projects to boost community numbers.

Eday, one of the North Isles, is home to the Eday Partnership Award, which has been allocated £225,380 to purchase a two-bedroom house to be used as affordable housing.

And the Papay Development Trust on Papa Westray, one of Orkney’s smallest communities, has been awarded £208,596 to acquire two houses to be offered for affordable rent to those in the community.

In the Outer Hebrides, a total of £101,447 has been given to the island community of Great Bernera, which is home to about 250 residents, to purchase a vacant industrial building for community use.

The Great Bernera Community Development Trust will acquire The Hatchery building in Kirkibost, which will be developed into a social and enterprise hub where people can work and do creative projects together.

The latest SLF cash injection is also supporting urban communities, including one buyout for a community building devastated by a fire ten years ago.

The Corstorphine Community Centre (CCC), in Edinburgh, has received £960,000 to go towards buying Westfield House in a £1.1m community asset transfer with the city council.

The centre has been leasing the three-storey building from the council at a peppercorn rent since last year, but will now take over ownership, which will allow it to expand its activities.

Shulah Allan, chairperson of CCC, said: “This is a momentous occasion for the local community, who have been raising funds since a fire in 2013 to rebuild a community centre for the area."

And in Fife, the Kingsbarns Development Trust has been given £590,000 from the SLF to establish a community hub at the Inn at Kingsbarns in St Andrews. The property will consist of rooms to let, a pub, restaurant, cafe and community shop.

Sharon Makin, from the trust, said: “This is the first step to realising our dream of creating a lively and welcoming community hub in the village including a shop for essentials and local produce.”

While the funding has been welcomed by some community land groups, campaigners have said buyouts are “plateauing”.

Linsay Chalmers, from Community Land Scotland (CLS), which manages applications from communities taking interest in buying land, said despite the “huge amount of interest” from communities, off market sales and higher prices in rural markets were “a big threat” to their success in acquiring land.

"We are seeing buyouts take place, but they are mostly smaller buyouts – a property or a small bit of land here and there,” she said. "The amount of total acres that communities are getting hold of is plateauing.

"Some estates go for millions of pounds – that’s a huge effort for a community to try and reach. The scale of what communities can manage is definitely going down.

"We would like to see more regulation of the land market and larger community land buyouts.”

She said the only most notable recent larger community buyout was by the Langholm Initiative, which bought some 10,500 acres in total from landowner the Duke of Buccleuch over three years.

The SLC report released in May found off-market, or “secret” sales, still make up a significant proportion of all transactions. While the report noted there had been a fall in these private sales in the estates market, the document said there had been a noticeable increase in such sales involving upland farms going to forestry companies.

The report said the findings “reinforce the pattern of concentrated land ownership in Scotland” by making it harder for younger farmers, environmental groups and local communities to afford the higher prices.

SLC chairman Andrew Thin said the results should pressure the Scottish Government to intervene in the new Land Reform Bill proposals to ensure “better regulation of significant land sales”.

Crown Estates Scotland (CES), the body that manages land and seabed once owned outright by British monarchs, has seemingly agreed to support a radical agenda being pushed through by Scottish ministers to increase community ownership of large estates by helping acquire land to then sell back to communities.

With Scottish country estate and farm prices soaring to record levels, it is thought the organisation’s wealth and expertise could help communities buy land they might otherwise have been unable to bid for.

A spokesperson for CES confirmed the initiative was in “the early stages” and the type and scale of assets that may be involved was not yet clear.