Multi-level cases of community-led land tenure and governance initiatives in rural Scotland

In the 5-year ‘Scotland’s Land Reform Futures’ project, the first research I carried out explored how alternative models of land tenure and governance in other countries addressed land reform goals such as ownership diversity, community empowerment, and public benefit, what factors contribute to or impede their success, and can be learned from them for Scottish land reform.

Continuing this research into alternative models, we looked at four case studies of innovative community-led land-based initiatives in rural Scotland. We chose cases that are examples of bottom-up initiatives supported by relationships across multiple governance levels and geographies: Tarras Valley Nature Reserve, Comrie Croft, Glengarry Community Development Trust and NorthWest 2045.

While analysis is ongoing, there are early findings about contributions/barriers to success - success generally, according to participants, meaning community development and the sustainability of the initiative). Success is also summed up in this quote from a participant from Langholm: “When people stop saying, ‘it’s yours’ and start saying, ‘it’s ours’.’’

Contributors to success include:

social capital (the value that is created by social connections and relationships in society):

formal partnerships and support peer-to-peer learning and capacity building
“we don’t all have to keep reinventing the wheel” (Glengarry Community Development Trust)

community engagement:

focus on local needs, good local relationships, economic contributions talking to people, leafleting, drop-in sessions; visibility, accessibility in the area, clear messaging feedback to community on actions and decisions taken

intangible/personal qualities:

“It takes a special kind of person that is willing to come into the office every week and be like ‘Right. I’m going to tell you about this thing that we’re going to be doing and it’s going to take forever. It’ll be really exciting.’ And to stay excited.” (Glengarry Community Development Trust) confidence to “think big and not be scared” (Tarras Valley)

Barriers or challenges faced include:

Financial:

high cost of land, costs of permissions, feasibility studies, etc. reliance on volunteers; capital funding easier to get than operational funding staff spend too much time ‘grant farming’ for their own positions government budget restraints

Capacity:

reliance on a small pool of busy volunteers geographical community may have lack of knowledge and experience with governance, ownership and management access to land – in a land-based initiative – is not necessarily the biggest hurdle “you can't empower communities without giving them the resources to actually carry out their activities… because it's meaningless.” (NorthWest 2045)

Significantly, innovative community initiatives are hindered by one-size-fits-all policies or processes that may not be joined up within and between levels and across geographies. Some brief examples include:

• Local authorities implementing the recent short-term lets licensing policy differently from each other in similar situations
• A Government agency treating a community group like a housing developer with road access requirements
• The Forestry Commission insisting on a right of pre-emption for the land a community wanted to purchase but the Scottish Land Fund not wanting to give money with that condition on it
• A general sense that government departments are siloed and this creates barriers

Greater efforts towards policy coherence, supporting capacity building and providing reliable operational funding would assist with the sustainability of these initiatives and their transferability to other localities.

The full report will come in April, 2026, to be published on the Scotland’s Land Reform Futures project website.

Contact: Naomi Beingessner, naomi.beingessner@hutton.ac.uk

Project team: Naomi Beingessner, Lorna Pate, James Glendinning, Carey Doyle, Fiona Bender, Bryony Nelson