Land reform is the pathway to building true people power.
It’s time for the Government, at both a local and national level, to have a far greater hand in delivering land reform and strategic land planning at a regional and national scale. Community-led land reform has been and continues to be a transformational, grassroots movement that builds local democracy alongside social and economic power, but it cannot deliver the land reform that Scotland needs alone. Structural state-led reform is needed to break the power of monopoly landowners, reduce land prices and stop land speculation. This will in turn allow for a further blossoming of community landownership.
It’s time for our political leaders, backed by the people, to grasp the thistle of real land reform and take on the powerful interests that have controlled our shared natural assets for too long. We need a country where the majority of land is owned and managed by the people, be they local communities, farmers, local businesses or the public sector.
Over a hundred years ago, a quote now mostly attributed to Mark Twain, was coined: ‘Buy land, they’re not making anymore of it.’ Investors, asset managers, billionaires and aristocrats have heeded this advice closely and accumulated the vast majority of our land, whilst successive governments and too many of us have let it happen.
It’s time for us to make sure that we collectively use and manage the land in ways which support our futures. We should have more of a stake in our land. It is our most essential common resource. Let’s ensure in the next Parliament we have a government with a clear mandate to deliver this, and a public that will not accept anything less.