Hume Occasional Paper No. 57
ISBN 1-870482-48-5
In the lecture which undoubtedly attracted the most heated discussion (and which is printed separately below), Jeremy Rowan Robinson explains that the term ‘land reform’ is not one widely used among lawyers. He does admit that the involved parties, whether it is a tenant farmer seeking ownership or security of tenure, a hillwalker seeking access, a developer seeking planning permission, or a landowner seeking privacy that each would be in no doubt as to its meaning for them. In order to bring some coherence to the subject the lecture is divided into five themes, namely: stewardship; community involvement in land; access to the countryside; planning gain; and compulsory purchase and compensation. These are portrayed as Rowan Robinson’s ‘desert island discs’ if he were limited to five topics on land reform to lay before the Scottish Parliament.
On stewardship the key issue is seen as one of establishing responsibilities as well as rights. Government intervention here is also commented on in the nature of the, mainly European Union subsidy programmes which support agricultural output to the tune of £450m and yet afford a more modest £20m for agricultural environmental issues. Rowan Robinson argues that this balance is not correct, although this itself will lie beyond the direct influence of the Scottish Parliament. On community involvement in land, the recommendations of the Land Reform Policy Group is highlighted. Here the emphasis is on providing opportunity to communities to purchase land. Rowan Robinson find this in itself unobjectionable, especially when one considers the substantial subsidy through right-to-buy programmes for council house privatisation and the MIRAs scheme of mortgage-interest-tax-relief. But the emphasis is seen as wrong with the true priority being owed to providing voice to local communities in matters pertaining to land use.
On access to the countryside the work of the Access Forum (a voluntary body comprising interested parties such as the Scottish Landowner’s Federation, the National Farmers’ Union and the Scottish Crofters’ Union) is generally praised as being measured and reasonable. Rowan Robinson’s view of the recent trend in planning gain whereby planning authorities have been tending to extract a local betterment levy on developers in return for granting planning permission, the plea to the Scottish Parliament is that such payments be restricted to reflect the actual costs of infrastructure requirements and other problems created by the development in question. This would be consistent with Scottish Office guidelines which currently have no legal force.
Finally the situation with compulsory purchase and consequent compensation is seen to cry out for urgent action by the Scottish Parliament. The process of compulsory purchase is seen to be far too long and drawn out, and the compensation when it is made is seen to be inadequate in several senses. The conclusion is that this is an area of rapid change where the Scottish Parliament will be centrally involved and where it has great potential to improve matters, if it gets it right.
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