Letter: Complex crofting

I am an absentee crofter. I own the croft-house, but am a tenant of the croft (the land on which my croft-house stands).

Following this year's Crofting Reform Act, there has been a crackdown on the likes of me. The aim is to make more crofts available to those who want to be crofters. An absentee crofter is expected either to return to the croft or to assign the croft tenancy to someone who will live on it or within 16 km of it - failing which the absentee may lose the croft tenancy.

In common with others in my situation, this year I had to complete and return a questionnaire from the Crofters Commission. Its decision in my case is that "no action will be taken against you as you have advised that another family member is resident on the croft". I remain as an absentee on the Register of Crofts, and "the absentee situation may be subject to annual review".

In my opinion, the demand for crofts is much more a demand for croft-houses (somewhere to live) than for crofting (working the land of a small holding). An Inverness lawyer specialising in crofting issues agreed.

We are also promised a clamp-down on crofters who neglect the land. Neglect is surely a more significant issue than absenteeism. It does make me feel sad to see fields that 40 years ago were productive now lying neglected, but the causes are complex, and include the low level of return for the required investment of money and effort.

The average croft might satisfy a hobby farmer, but the crofter who is interested in working the land typically uses also the crofts of a number of neighbours (through formal or informal sub-lets), thereby benefiting from the neighbours' inactivity.

It could happen that a locality is left with no crofter willing and able to work the land, with the result that all the land there falls into neglect. What then? Deprive all those crofters of their tenancies?

It would not be the fault of any single tenant if the locality no longer had the desirable mixture of both active and inactive crofters.

People's circumstances can change unexpectedly, as mine did. So there could even be a danger that officious zeal in chasing up crofters who are absent or whose crofts are not being worked will eventually reduce demand for crofts.

Joined-up government would be welcome. I know of a crofter who this year has been given planning permission for two further houses on his croft on what is perhaps the best agricultural land in that area.

Will crofting with all its legal apparatus go on forever? This could be a good time to be thinking about what might supersede it.

John MacNeill

Mount Road

Wolverhampton