Dances with Lairds: Lessons from Scottish Land Reform

In 2013, the then First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, took to a podium at the Community Land Scotland Conference at the Gaelic college Sabhal Mor Ostaig on Skye Island to announce a commitment to transfer one million acres of land into community owner ship by 2020.& He envisaged “a radical reshaping of the right to buy landscape that has the potential to transform the fortunes of communities across the country” in order to “achieve our own shared aspirations: new jobs and new amenities in areas that long denied them, and the regeneration and repopulation of communities across Scotland” (Salmond 2013). !e community land vision is part of a wider governmental commitment to “radical and ambitious” land reform in Scotland. Notwithstanding much chagrin from dominant landowners (the lairds) and their representatives, this commitment led to signi#cant changes in land governance in Scotland, including the creation of a new set of rights to enable communities to buy land in Scotland.
Community rights to buy land and obligations to consult local communities in planning decisions are embedded in legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament: the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, the Community Empowerment Scotland) Act 2015, and the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016. !is legislation creates new community rights to own land and other assets in Scotland. With some optimism, this may be viewed as part of an upward curve toward legal protection of community rights globally