Community Landownership on the Rise in Dumfries and Galloway

MEDIA RELEASE

21st March 2017

Community landownership on the rise in Dumfries and Galloway

This Thursday, the Board of Community Land Scotland, the representative body for Scotland’s community landowners, will hold a ‘meet and greet’ event at the Easterbrook Hall in Dumfries. The event aims to raise awareness of the potential of community landownership to revitalise communities in the Dumfries and Galloway region and to ensure that local organisations are tapping into all of the help and advice that is available to them.

Over the past 20 years, many communities in the Highlands and Islands, such as the Isle of Eigg, Knoydart and West Harris have bought land as a way of creating jobs, housing and other opportunities in their area. Now, communities in Dumfries and Galloway are also tapping into the potential for landownership to drive forward development. Since the third round of the Scottish Land Fund opened in April 2016, Dumfries and Galloway communities have submitted more applications than any other area, with 15 communities currently funded or in the pipeline. These applications range from the purchase of woodlands near Moffat to land for community-led housing and community hubs.

Communities across Scotland now own a total 540,000 acres of land. A study of twelve community-owned estates carried out by Community Land Scotland in 2014, demonstrated their potential to create jobs and other economic opportunities, with staffing on the estates increasing by 368% and spending on local business increasing fortyfold.

David Cameron, Chair of Community Land Scotland said “Many of us in rural Scotland are living in areas of declining population, closing schools, lack of jobs, outmigration of youngsters, all leading to confidence ebbing away.

However now there are areas particularly in the Highlands and Islands where communities have taken on the challenge of improving their own future by purchasing and developing their land and the results have been transformational.

This can be replicated right across Scotland, north, south, rural and urban.

Community Land Scotland members are at the forefront of this genuine bottom-up development and today our 70 plus members can provide practical advice based on real experience both to groups that are considering purchasing land and those that have already done so.”

Many of Community Land Scotland’s members own and manage forests and, with over 30% of land in Dumfries and Galloway’s being covered with woodland, community owned forestry is an area with a great deal of potential .

Ian Hepburn, Director of Community Land Scotland said “The recent legislative changes that extend the “Community Right To Buy” to the whole of Scotland and the introduction of new rights for communities to request the transfer of assets from Local Authorities and other public bodies provide all communities with an opportunity to look at the usage of assets in their locality. In particular, in Dumfries and Galloway this could relate to Forest Enterprise Scotland assets of all types. The new Forest Enterprise Scotland “Community Assets Transfer Scheme” allows community bodies to request the transfer of assets even if they are not currently for sale where the transfer will provide new and innovative ways of enhancing the economic and social sustainability of their environment if the transfer will not affect operational efficiency.”

Further information is available on the Community Land Scotland web site:

Notes

For further press information, contact:

Linsay Chalmers

Development Manager

Community Land Scotland

Email:

Tel: 07884 314297

Community Land Scotland – Meet the Board event

The Meet the Board event will take place at Easterbrook Hall, The Crichton, Bankend Road, Dumfries DG1 4TA on the 23rd March from 3pm to 4.30pm.

Community Land Scotland

Community Land Scotland is the representative body for Scotland’s growing number of community landowners. It facilitates the exchange of knowledge and best practice between community landowners, promotes the importance of the community landowning sector to Scotland, represents the sector and eases the process of communities taking on land. Community Land Scotland currently has 75 members.

Community Land’s Scotland’s Economic Indicator Report can be found at:

Community Scotland Economic Indicator Report

Community Land Scotland

Fearann Coimhearsnachd na h-Alba

Scott Road, Tarbert

HS3 3DL

@communitylandsc

The Scottish Land Fund

The Scottish Land Fund reopened to applications in April 2016. The programme is funded by the Scottish Government and delivered in partnership by the Big Lottery Fund and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, both of which have extensive experience of helping communities to acquire and develop their assets for over a decade.

The BIG Lottery Fund distributes lottery funding to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. It also uses its expertise in grant-giving to distribute non-Lottery funding. Full details of the BIG Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: BIG Lottery Fund Public Enquiries Line call: 0300 123 7110.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) delivers the Scottish Government Economic Strategy across more than half of Scotland - from Shetland to Argyll and from the Hebrides to Moray. It aims to support businesses and social enterprises; strengthen communities and fragile areas; develop key sectors, and create the conditions for a competitive and low carbon region. HIE has an annual budget of more than £75m and employs around 250 people in locations around the Highlands and Islands. See more at

Forest Enterprise Scotland’s Community Asset Transfer Scheme

Further details can be found at: http://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/managing/get-involved/community-asset-transfer-scheme