The rights and wrongs of our land

the Highlands and Islands with many still undecided whether we are indeed at the dawn of a new age of reform. It is an issue much discussed over the past

25

years, but not always fully understood. To rehearse the evils of the Clearances has always been easy, but now more is needed.

Both the SNP and the Government are preparing the way ahead on the issue, but both have left unanswered questions.

Alex Salmond choppered into Inverness last Friday specifically to promote the idea of directly elected Locality Land Councils which will have the powers of planning authorities. The SNP is confident that these new bodies will hold the

key to transforming the current free-for-all in land sales and depress the often ludicrous prices sought for Highland land.

Mr Salmond concluded with a characteristic flourish that if a Scottish Parliament did not right the wrongs of our land, then it was not worthy of the

name. Most would agree with him on that, but it is the heavy reliance on such an unproven instrument to achieve radical change in how our land is used which

is perplexing.

Mr Salmond said that the Locality Land Councils would not set the value of an estate going on the market. Although he didn't rule out a role for the

district

valuer, the land councils' tight control of what use the new landlord might put his/her land to would introduce sanity and accountability into the system.

One of the problems with this is that it would only work where there are genuine communities left on the land. In the Highlands and Islands these by

and

large are the crofting communities, which are already protected by legislation, not least the individual crofter's legal right to buy their croft

at 15 times the annual rent established by the 1976 Act.

But it's not in these areas where the problem has lain, in fact they are part of the solution. It is in the human deserts of the landlord country that the difficulty is to be found. There you can range for mile after mile passing little if any habitation, and what little there is may well be occupied by estate workers. A few holiday or retirement cottages can represent the remaining human presence in a locality. Is this to be the constituency of the new body, the front line against international land speculation? One need only

look to the vast tracts of land owned by the Vestey family north of Knockan, and others in Sutherland, to see how far you would have to extend locality boundaries to deliver a viable electorate/constituency. But by doing so, the critical local element would be seriously diluted.

The SNP's land expert, Rob Gibson, may well be right that the Islay Land Use Forum provides a useful blueprint for a pilot scheme and that every locality would have to adapt to their own particular circumstances, but this writer has

genuine difficulty in understanding how such a system could apply across the Highlands and Islands, or Scotland for that matter. We could end up with a patchwork in which some areas local people are effectively controlling the

fate

of their land, while in others little will change.

The week before Mr Salmond's visit to the Highland capital, Donald Dewar was

in

Badenoch delivering the John McEwen Memorial Lecture and launching the second

Scottish Office consultative document on reform. He was well received, but a serious question mark remains.

In his speech the Secretary of State outlined how a Scottish Parliament could seek to

establish a ''right to buy'' for

local communities when the land they lived and worked on appeared on the

market.

''The right sort of mechanism needs careful study. The mechanism might either kick in as soon as a property came on the market, in other words a pre-emptive

right to buy, or be one that operated after the open market sale - somewhat akin to the ''art sale'' where sales would take a major work of art overseas can be stopped to see if the successful bid can be equalled within the UK.

''Either approach would provide for a community right to buy if within a given

period they could match the market price, either the price set by the district

valuer or the price offered by the highest bidder. If they came up with the cash in time they could acquire the estate; if they couldn't meet the

deadline,

the open market would go ahead.''

If the value were to be set by the district valuer, it

would immediately help combat land speculation, but Mr Dewar has left us a problem, one which was laudably highlighted in last week's West Highland Free Press editorial.

While he advanced the district-valuer option, the consultative document did no

such thing. It talked only of introducing ''. . . community right to buy at market value''. This in itself would be attractive if there were to be comprehensive Government financial support for communities but that is not

what

is being proposed as Mr Dewar made crystal clear: ''Finally we would need to ensure that the wishes of the community did not automatically lead to a demand

on the Government for funds. We cannot be the provider of all resources for this project.''

The communities would therefore be left largely to raise the money themselves.

But the days of the worldwide appeal bringing an immediate response look to be

over, as the people of Knoydart, Assynt, and Eigg may well be the last.

So we could be left with the position whereby the special position of local communities is enshrined in law, preventing land being sold from underneath them overnight, but with no greater realistic prospect of acquiring it.

There would seem little point in giving local people six months to confirm

that

they are still impotent to act.

If there is to be genuine progress on the land issue it would seem unavoidable

that the Government makes funds available to communities, perhaps buying those

estates which are deemed of particular significance and allowing the local people

to buy them over a 50-year period or whatever.

A community mortgage would mean that public funds were replenished. After all,

plenty of public money is invested in industrialists.

But that would just be one measure. A role for the district valuer could be established. This, along with the reintroduction of local authority sporting rates, would help establish a fair price for land.

The extension of crofting into new areas also has enormous potential for controlling the worst excesses of landlordism. Neither would it necessarily require outright ownership. Those landlords who display scant regard for the new official code of practice for rural land use and abuse their stewardship,

could have new

crofts created on their land.

A tweaking of the powers of compulsory purchase might suffice.

There has been enormous progress made on the land issue. The idea of a Government intervening in the market, even if just to establish a community right of pre-emption, was quite simply unimaginable until May 1 last year,

Michael

Forsyth notwithstanding.

But we have to get it right, make it work, or we will still be talking in

another

25 years.