Scotland cannot afford for this latest round of land reform to fail, as at least two previous attempts.
The proposals by the Scottish Government so far are significantly lacking in many respects – in particular their focus on fully regulating only a few of Scotland’s largest estates and thus extended only to around 20% of Scotland’s land area. We believe that land reform should be enacted everywhere that it is required, not merely where the Scottish Government believes that it can afford to spend resources.
We are also concerned about the lack of local democratic reform in this proposal. Without it and without the voices of local communities that that democracy will bring to the process, we cannot see that the Act will provide meaningful change of land ownership and land use patterns.
The answers on land reform have been provided by campaigners for decades and the current devolution framework already provides sufficient power to enact the required reforms. We do not need to “wait” for independence to occur before we can think about land reform. We merely require there to be a Scottish Government able and willing to carry out the plan.