Launch of the grouse shooting season used to highlight areas of Scotland neglected by wealthy
A new group is pushing for more community ownership of land and buildings by creating a month-long campaign highlighting the issue.
Called Our Land, the initiative is encouraging members of the public to identify derelict buildings and sites and post pictures of them on social media using the hashtag #OurLand.
Veteran land campaigner Andy Wightman and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch are behind the campaign alongside campaigning groups the Common Weal and Women for Independence.
They argue that current legislation “allows a handful of individuals, quangos, insurance companies and trusts based in offshore tax havens to dictate the price, availability and use of land” in Scotland.
Currently the land reform bill, presented to the Scottish Parliament in June, does not address the problems of “stifled local development and unaffordable housing” according to the campaigners.
The initiative was launched at the start of the grouse shooting season - the Glorious Twelfth – to emphasise how much of Scotland’s land is owned by a few wealthy incumbents.
Robin McAlpine of Common Weal said: “The quasi-feudal way land is owned in Scotland affects rural and urban communities.
“It is often seen as an issue of justice and it is, but it is also a crucial issue of housing, of economic development, of food and of poverty.
“Some 50% of private land is owned by 432 landowners, from large sporting estates to empty buildings and derelict land in our towns and cities.
“It affects everyday lives by pushing up the cost of housing – 40-50% of new-build costs are the cost of land. That is very different in most other European nations.
“The inability to buy means long-term residents are turned into short-term tenants with very little security or ability to plan or improve their homes.
“In large parts of the Scottish countryside locals know they will never ever be able to buy land for a business, community development, affordable housing for their own children or modest weekend hut. That isn’t good enough.”
Pictures can be shared on Twitter using the hashtag #ourland or sent to [email protected] They can also be shared on Facebook.
