Making more of Scotland’s land

Hamish Trench, Chief Executive, Scottish Land Commission:

At our conference on 28 September we published our first Strategic Plan for the Scottish Land Commission: ‘Making More of Scotland’s Land’.

In this we set out a clear vision: a fair, inclusive and productive system of land ownership, management and use that delivers greater benefits for all the people of Scotland.

Our plan reflects the broad reach and relevance of land reform. We want to open up debate and change in the way we make the most of our land; and ask fundamental questions about the role land plays in delivering things that matter to people across Scotland.

We want to shape change on the ground that makes it easier to deliver housing, to create high quality places for people to live, for communities to shape the way the land and buildings around them are used and for people to be able to access the land needed to develop new enterprises, grow businesses and the economy.

Our work will be as much about Scotland’s urban centres as it is about rural communities and it will be about both land ownership and land use.

To start delivering against this in the coming three years, our work will be framed by three long term objectives: Productivity, Diversity and Accountability. We see improved productivity as being central to land reform. By this we mean we want land to be productive in economic, social and cultural ways. This is essentially about ensuring the way we structure land ownership and use helps grow our economy, our communities, our natural capital, our well-being.

Diversity of land ownership and the benefits of land use are also fundamental to our approach. We want to encourage a more diverse pattern of ownership, but also ensure the benefits from land are shared more widely and inclusively.

Accountability is critical to public confidence in any system where decisions of a few potentially impact the decisions of many, whether those decisions are made by private individuals, public agencies, community or charitable bodies.

We will be taking forward work in four priority areas:

• Land for Housing and Development
• Land Ownership
• Land use Decision Making
• Agricultural Tenure

In each of these we will be looking at potential changes to legislation and policy, but as important will be the cultural and practical changes we can help shape and prompt. Much progress can be made through changes in practice and approach.

While land reform has developed in Scotland in a rural context, it is as relevant to some of the major challenges we face in our towns and urban centres. For example, the way land markets function has a significant influence on the delivery of housing and infrastructure. Ownership and tenure constraints are key factors in looking at the re-use of vacant and derelict land and land supply for housing. We will be looking at what is needed to bring vacant and derelict land into more productive use, the impacts of land banking on housing land supply, land assembly for development and options for land value capture that would help unlock development.

We will also be addressing some of the fundamental questions about diversity and equity of land ownership. We want to understand the implications of scale and concentration of land ownership, to examine the role of charitable land ownership status and review the effectiveness of community right to buy mechanisms.

Land reform is of course not just about ownership, but the use of land and even more fundamentally, our connection to land. We will be exploring how the accountability of land use decision making can be improved, considering how and when communities and a broader range of interests can be engaged in decision making. The quality of decision making is also likely to be improved through policy alignment and clear articulations of the public interest in land use, all things Scotland’s Land Use Strategy seeks to help.

Agricultural tenure is our fourth priority, specifically in relation to the functions of the Tenant Farming Commissioner but it is also integral to our wider vision. The central theme here is seeking to improve relationships between agricultural landlords and tenants and looking at what is needed to stimulate the tenanted agricultural sector, improving investment and productivity. More widely we will be looking at what further action can be taken to improve access to land for new entrants, to help create a resilient and dynamic farming sector.

Taken together this is an ambitious programme of work for the coming three years and we will need to work with many organisations across sectors to make progress. We are determined that our work should deliver benefits on the ground in the short-term as well as leading to recommendations for changes to legislation and policy.

Engagement and communications is as important to us as research and evidence. We will be looking for opportunities to work with others in stimulating awareness of new approaches, promoting best practice and case studies, providing guidance where it is needed and influencing change on the ground.

We do not underestimate the diverse range of views and expectations across the scope of work we are setting out. But we have a straight-forward approach. We will work with all interests and listen to everyone, we will challenge and test assumptions, we will be thoroughly evidence-based and above all we will be open, transparent and outward looking, willing to learn from ideas and experience wherever we find it.

This is an exciting time for the Scottish Land Commission and we look forward to working with all interests to make more of Scotland’s land. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us to share ideas and experience.

This short animation summarises the work ahead for the Scottish Land Commission: ‘Making more of Scotland’s land’