The Jimmy Reid Foundation has commissioned a discussion paper from Dr Calum Macleod on land reform.
The paper, Land Reform for the Common Good, argues the need to speak truth to landed power by asserting land reform’s role as a progressive force for the common good has never been greater. The climate and nature emergencies demand significant changes to land use to decarbonise Scotland’s economy and restore depleted biodiversity in ways that ensure a just transition to meeting these goals. The depopulation crisis facing many of our rural and islands communities, much of which is rooted in a shortage of affordable housing, inadequate infrastructure, and gaps in services provision, is an existential threat to their long-term futures. In our towns and cities land lies vacant and derelict or is banked as a speculative asset for private gain rather than being put to the service of communities’ wellbeing. A pervading theme cutting across all of these profound 21st century policy challenges is the growing recognition that Scotland’s people in our rural and urban places are being increasingly locked out of their fair share of what should be land’s common wealth.
Dr Calum Macleod will introduce his paper at an online event on Thursday, 27 July 2023, at 7 pm. He will outline land reform policy since devolution and explain the challenges our unregulated and dysfunctional rural land market creates. Calum will conclude with proposals for a new Land Reform Act that creates land for the common good and how Scotland can mobilise to deliver that goal.
You can register for this event at Eventbrite here.
The paper will be published on 27 July.