Our Land Fife's Greg Brown reflects on the 2016 Our Land festival and looks ahead to coming challenges
DURING the summer of 2016, the Our Land campaign held many local festivals around Scotland.
The aim was to highlight issues around land reform in both urban and rural areas and celebrate examples of how some local communities have identified issues and are attempting to tackle them.
I attended three festival events – in Aviemore, Fife and Dunkeld. Here, I want to highlight some of those examples to show the practical side of land reform and, through them, explore what more should be done to change who has power over our land.
Land is hoarded by those seeking only to maximise profit from it, when the real need is to lower the cost of land drastically so that affordable housing can be built.
In Aviemore, a huge housing issue was debated at its festival. The area is a tourist hotspot with many second homes. The irony is that many people who work in low paid jobs serving that industry simply can't afford to live locally.
Land is hoarded by those seeking only to maximise profit from it, when the real need is to lower the cost of land drastically so that affordable housing can be built. This could potentially be on a self-build basis as well as the more usual social housing.
By the village of Kinghorn near Kirkcaldy, local people working together established an Ecology Centre some years ago. The centre was set up with land round Kinghorn Loch and the lease of nearby farm buildings.
The whole project was threatened when the lease ran out. Fortunately, it was possible to build a new Ecology Centre to replace the leased buildings. This good fortune, however, depended on purchasing a piece of land owned by a company in receivership.
A sale was being forced on the owners and the local community-owned development trust was able to threaten use of the community right to buy. This effectively gave them the first chance to purchase the land. Without the quirk of those circumstances, the land would have been used for private house building instead. Now, the whole local community, Fife school children and a great many visitors from far and wide benefit from the centre in its unique location.
Ways have to be developed to challenge continued ownership on the part of those stifling the pursuit of development for wider public good.
Elsewhere in Fife, near Inverkeithing, the success of another unique project seems to depend on land being in receivership. A disused quarry has been identified by diving experts as a perfect facility to train divers at intermediate level between swimming pools and the open sea.
They have used the quarry informally to test this out and now want to set up a community company to develop the facility properly. It would serve a Scotland-wide need as well as provide low cost access to diving training for local young people.
The fact of the land being in receivership, creates the possibility of a land acquisition which would otherwise not materialise.
Some local communities are keen on joint efforts to grow food and enable more people to learn how to grow food. An example in Rosyth uses two parcels of council-owned land to grow fruit and veg.
Local people are encouraged to harvest the produce for free. Near Dunkeld, a community group has leased a field from a local land owner at low cost, grows food organically on it and sells it locally at low cost. These projects have depended completely on no or low-cost access to land.
This means both promoting or forcing ownership change along with measures which greatly reduce the price of land.
By the village of Valleyfield near Dunfermline, there is a large estate with a great heritage in danger of being lost through continuing neglect. The land was once the private estate of the wealthy Preston family.
At the start of the 20th century, no heirs could be identified and the estate was acquired by a coal company. Its interest was purely in mining, so much so that the estate house, walled gardens and many interesting landscape and built features were allowed to go into ruin.
Around 60 years ago, the local council acquired the estate. As estate owner, its efforts have been confined to keeping some access paths open. The Trust's aim is to take over ownership of the estate, salvage damaged features where possible, improve access and provide interpretive information round it so that its remarkable history can be told.
Cove harbour near Aberdeen has been used by fishermen for over 300 years. Currently, eight fishermen rely on the harbour for their lobster fishing operation. The land owner has installed physical barriers to the harbour and used legal means to prohibit parking by the harbour.
This is an insurmountable threat to this small scale fishery. It is understood the land owner wants to sell a tranch of land and remove anything which may inhibit the realisation of maximum profit on sale. This illustrates perfectly the power of land ownership and the conflict between a land owner's interests and the wider public interest.
The examples in this article show many good things can happen when land can be acquired or leased. But they only happened, or could realistically be pursued, where land was at either low or no cost.
The site of the recently closed Longannet Power Station is now a huge area of dereliction still owned by Scottish Power. In addition to the concern to replace local jobs lost, the local community does not want this site to remain derelict for years like the neighbouring site of the former Kincardine Power Station, closed 15 years ago and also owned by Scottish Power.
A Scottish Government-led task force has been set up to explore alternative job creation and repurposing the Longannet site. Many people in the local community know the site very well, including its former coal workings.
They have ideas for possible future uses but find the task force process hard to access and participate in. They would like to see regeneration in a way that is most beneficial to the local community rather than new ownership and use being on a purely private, commercial basis.
To that end, consideration may be given to establishing a community development trust to contribute to the regeneration. Were such a trust to emerge, land purchase would still remain a major challenge.
These and many other very varied examples featured in the Our Land festivals. They highlighted some of the factors that either make possible or inhibit the pursuit of valuable community and wider purposes.
I believe the next phase of land reform has to include new measures which discourage or otherwise counter a landowner's ability to 'sit on' land, leave dereliction unattended for years, or otherwise stifle development for wider public good.
Current ownership confers great power over what can happen to a piece of land in the future. In addition, acquiring land usually depends on an owner being willing to sell combined with a purchaser’s ability to pay greatly inflated prices.
Ways have to be developed to challenge continued ownership on the part of those stifling the pursuit of development for wider public good. This means both promoting or forcing ownership change along with measures which greatly reduce the price of land.
The examples in this article show many good things can happen when land can be acquired or leased. But they only happened, or could realistically be pursued, where land was at either low or no cost.
The examples here relate to publicly-owned land or land in receivership. In the case of the latter the community right to buy, or more accurately the threat of it, made a crucial difference.
In the case of the former power station sites, Scottish Power's own commercial interests may not line up well with maximising local community benefit.
Beyond that, we need ways to prioritise future land use decisions away from considerations of maximum private profit in favour of local community and wider public benefit.
Not directly connected to the Our Land festivals, I spent a week recently taking part in organised tree planting work in a glen in the north Highlands. One side of this glen is being gradually restored to Caledonian pine forest while the other remains a wet desert, managed for deer stalking recreation.
It is arguably more important to work for ecological restoration in Highland glens than retain deer stalking. The latter requires an over-population of deer which precludes tree recovery.
Ecological restoration can be justified for its own sake. However, it is being increasingly shown in Scotland that restoration activity and wildlife tourism can create many more rural jobs than deer stalking.
Examples like this bring into sharp focus potential conflicts between the rights of private land owners to determine land use versus considerations of wider public good.
Perhaps they also highlight some limitations of the community ownership model as the only means by which to diversify land ownership to meet social, economic and environmental objectives.
Without a major reduction in land prices, it is hard to see how the Aviemore need to low cost housing can be tackled effectively.
I believe the next phase of land reform has to include new measures which discourage or otherwise counter a landowner's ability to 'sit on' land, leave dereliction unattended for years, or otherwise stifle development for wider public good.
Beyond that, we need ways to prioritise future land use decisions away from considerations of maximum private profit in favour of local community and wider public benefit. When such benefits can be demonstrated, much stronger powers are needed to allow the necessary changes of ownership to take place. Measures are also needed to reduce the cost of land substantially.
The examples featured in this article offer the merest taste of the immensely varied potential for community and interest group-led initiatives dependent on access to land. The question for me is: do the land reforms enacted so far really facilitate the necessary access to land ownership the projects depend upon?
My answer is that they undoubtedly help, but need to be taken further. Subsequent phases of land reform have to make access to land ownership much easier, as I will now argue.
Currently, where a land owner is a willing seller, the obstacle is money. Land changes hands for highly inflated prices. In general, ability to pay the highest price trumps any measure of the scale of community benefit. And there are no shortage of parties able to pay those inflated prices.
The question for me is: do the land reforms enacted so far really facilitate the necessary access to land ownership the projects depend upon?
The Scottish Land Fund can never be large enough to achieve a real diversification of land ownership with land prices as they are. Without a major reduction in land prices, it is hard to see how the Aviemore need to low cost housing can be tackled effectively.
We also need measures which give real substance to the Scottish Government's policy aims of sustainable development for the wider public good. Those measures must allow interventions to change ownership where current ownership fails those policy aims.
The measures available so far are, of course, very useful, but they are also very limited in breadth. The Community Right To Buy (CRTB) land with which a local community has a connection was first established in 2003 and extended in 2015.
It arises when a land owner has decided to sell. Most land, urban or rural, is potentially eligible for the exercise of this right. In 2016, the CRTB was extended to the pursuit of sustainable development by community bodies – even when the land has not been put up for sale.
However, the criteria to be met before Scottish ministers can approve a forced sale will be very difficult to meet, and may often result in a legal challenge even when ministerial approval is given.
My answer is that they undoubtedly help, but need to be taken further. Subsequent phases of land reform have to make access to land ownership much easier.
Since 2015, a right to force a sale, even when the owner is unwilling to sell, arises in cases of abandoned, neglected or detrimental land. For the purpose of this right, a community controlled body is defined widely – the community could be geographically defined, interest defined or defined as a community with shared characteristics.
For eligible land, the fact that a sale can be forced and community can be defined widely, does make this a potent right. Taken together, it is clear that some land purchases will be made possible by these measures, supported by the Scottish Land Fund.
Indeed, it is heartening to see the expansion of interest in community buy outs and the number of applications received by the Scottish Land Fund to assist purchase. These new applications now concern urban as well as rural land.
Given the scale of diversification of land ownership desirable and the wide scope for different parties to propose beneficial sustainable development, it is unrealistic to expect community buy outs of the type provided for so far to be sufficient.
The criteria for community buy outs for sustainable development need to be loosened. They should simply be focused on community capacity and the sustainable development proposed and compared to current or threatened land use.
Community ownership has grown from being an experiment into a proven model for delivering transformational outcomes for local communities.
Community ownership has grown from being an experiment into a proven model for delivering transformational outcomes for local communities. Together, the buy outs achieved already make a hugely valuable contribution to broader Scottish Government sustainable development aims.
The question which now needs to be posed, however, is whether this ownership model alone is sufficient to produce the scale of land ownership diversification needed to meet wider social, economic and environmental objectives.
It is possible to imagine a much wider range of charities and not-for-profit organisations which can contribute. Bodies such as the RSPB, John Muir Trust and The National Trust for Scotland are interest groups.
Constitutionally, they are not directly linked to local communities. Rather, they must typically work in partnership with local communities where they own land. They have a proven track record, but are also beset by land prices and have no power to force a land sale.
There are huge areas of land in Scotland where it would be hard to identify a cohesive local community, but where environmental degradation or destruction requires reversing. Bodies like these and many others have a potential role.
Together, the buy outs achieved already make a hugely valuable contribution to broader Scottish Government sustainable development aims.
The Prestonhill Quarry example described here suggests circumstances when an interest group and a local community can work together for a shared objective and establish a not-for-profit organisation to formalise the relationship.
The Ecology Centre at Kinghorn aslo shows a coming together of a special interest group and a local community for real mutual benefit.
The Cove Harbour example perhaps illustrates when an occupational group has an interest in access to and right to use land, or indeed be a land owner. Were the Cove fishermen able to own their harbour, as a not-for-profit coop for example, their livelihoods could not be threatened at the whim of a land owner with conflicting interests.
Nothing in the current range of land reforms offers such a solution for the Cove fishermen.
The next phase of land reform should look at
– Making community ownership easier to achieve in a wider range of circumstances, and
– What other not-for-profit ownership models also merit legal and/or financial support
Perhaps the next tranch of land reform should see the onus put on current land owners to justify continuing ownership in terms of their contributions to Scotland's social, economic and environmental wellbeing rather than narrow self interest.
Large scale diversification of land ownership can be justified on the grounds of equity alone. Even so, the real driver will be the practical realisation of social, economic and environmental benefits.
The community ownership model may well merit the strongest legal and financial support. However, more debate is needed on ways to extend the range of ownership models also worthy of legal and/or financial support, and appropriate to a much wider range of presenting circumstances.
Perhaps also, the next tranch of land reform should see the onus put on current land owners to justify continuing ownership in terms of their contributions to Scotland's social, economic and environmental wellbeing rather than narrow self interest.
That would provide a sound policy basis for challenging their continuing ownership where appropriate. And it would encourage action from those motivated to contribute to achieving those policy goals.
Picture courtesy of Common Weal
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