Scottish Land Fund to open on April 1 with £10m

Today marks a “new dawn” for radical land reform in Scotland according to the Scottish government as land reform minister Aileen McLeod announced that the new Scottish Land Fund will open on April 1 with £10 million available to help community buy-outs.

It comes as the Scottish government’s Land Reform Billreaches its final stage of the parliamentary process.

The Scottish Land Fund will continue until 2020 and support has trebled to £10 million a year to help communities buy their own land. The minister urged communities to consider whether owning the land they live and work on could mean it could offer greater benefit for local people.

The previous land fund awarded £9m over three years to 52 communities throughout Scotland. Of the 500,000 acres of land already in community ownership, over 90,000 acres was purchased with help from the land fund.

Speaking ahead of stage three of Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, Ms McLeod said: “Each community has its own set of reasons for wanting to take on the ownership of land. The important thing is that communities are able to make the right choice for them in order to meet local needs and further sustainable development in their local area.

“This is why we have restructured the fund to ensure support is available to communities from the idea stages right through to project development. I want to spread the word about the benefits that can be achieved through community ownership of land and encourage both urban and rural communities to apply to the Scottish Land Fund.”

Ailsa Raeburn, head of community assets at Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) said: “The launch of the new Scottish Land Fund will help more local groups across Scotland own and develop land and buildings that are important to them.

“Over the last 50 years, HIE has been a leader in community development across the Highlands and Islands and beyond. We have helped hundreds of groups develop thriving and sustainable projects that have helped contribute to building healthy, flourishing communities. We are very much looking forward to working with the Scottish government and the Big Lottery Fund in this next round which will see the fund extended to urban areas for the first time. It will be exciting to see these all of these new ideas come to life.”

Jackie Killeen, director of Big Lottery Fund Scotland, said: “Owning and developing community assets recognises the strength of people who are at the heart of all communities – those who live and work in a place. Here at the Big Lottery Fund we have been supporting groups in urban and rural Scotland through the Scottish Land Fund and our Lottery funded community assets programme since 2006. We know and understand the difference that community ownership is having across the country and we look forward to supporting more communities and people to make the right decision for them”.