Land of owners

Lesley Riddoch (Perspective, 12 August) and her fellow land reform activists continually trot out the statistic that “500 people own half of Scotland”: perhaps they mean half the privately owned rural land in Scotland.

In reality, in terms of property ownership, there are 2.2 million households in Scotland and nearly 70 per cent of them are owned by either the residents or landlords who let them to tenants.

In rural Scotland, there are at least 1,500 people who own and manage more than 1,000 acres and many thousands who own land in varying sizes smaller than that, including most owner-occupied farming businesses down to single-figure acres and everything in between.

Together, they own and work a vast area of the country, running to many millions of acres.

There are, of course, large-scale private landowners – as there are in most developed countries – who are regularly commended by government for the contribution they make to Scottish communities and rural economies.

There are also many other types of landowners, such as government, local authorities and non-governmental organisations (NGO)s. Land owned by communities and NGOs more than doubled from 1995 to 2012, which is hardly a sign that changes in ownership do not happen.

Scotland has a diverse mix of landowners and the assertion that this country is somewhat hindered by, or peculiar in, its land ownership patterns is not substantiated by evidence.

Although rural Scotland accounts for 94 per cent of land mass it accounts for only 18 per cent of the population. A mature, modern debate on land reform should be about the use of land and desired outcomes, before land ownership.

Douglas McAdam

Scottish Land & Estates

Eskmills Business Park

Musselburgh