Community ownership on the rise

The Estimate of Community Owned Land in Scotland 2017 publication presents the area of land in community ownership, the number of land parcels/assets in community ownership and the number of community groups that own land parcels/assets.

As at June 2017 there were 562,230 acres in community ownership this is 2.9 per cent of the total land area of Scotland. There were 492 land parcels/assets in community ownership owned by 403 community groups.

In the first six months of 2017, six additional land parcels/assets came into community ownership, bringing an additional 94.23 acres being in community ownership.

An additional 437,770 acres has to come into community ownership to achieve the target of having one million acres of land in community ownership by the end of 2020.

Community groups who own land parcels/assets are widespread across Scotland. Although the area of land in community ownership, is concentrated in two Local Authorities: Highland and Na h-Eileanan Siar. Na h-Eileanan Siar contains 385,340 acres of land in community ownership and Highland contains 141,912 acres. This equates to 93.7 per cent (527,252 acres) of the total land in community ownership in Scotland.