Crofting Commission plan to put disused crofts back to use
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COLUMN: From the Croft by Russell Smith
A year or so ago the Scottish Crofting Federation (SCF) started agitating about access to crofts.
It has become more and more difficult for young people to get a croft (outside of family assignations) as some crofts are going for crazy prices due to their development potential or desirability as second homes. There has been some slow but welcome progress on this front.
The Crofting Commission has a new development team based in the Western Isles, part of whose remit is to bring disused crofts back into use, target absentees and encourage succession planning so crofts are passed on to those who want to work them. Initially they will focus on the Western Isles but will roll this process out to all the Crofting Counties.
Also in the Western Isles, the Commission held a meeting with private and community landlords to attempt a more collaborative approach in dealing with absenteeism and neglect.
The Scottish Government have asked the Commission to set out their ideas for future legislation to make the whole system work better, again with a focus on bringing crofts back into use. The government has also pledged to look at their own crofting estates and are writing to absentees to make sure that crofts are being used productively.
And one of my must read features in this paper is the list of first registrations, assignations, decrofting applications and transfer of grazing shares as people get themselves organised to fully meet the regulations. Grazing shares can get detached from the croft when the in-bye is bought and sold but the grazing share remains tenanted (sometimes called a deemed croft). We should also be pushing for changes to the law so that owner occupied crofts are also subject to Commission oversight and given the same level of scrutiny as changes in tenancies.
Crofting law reform will go ahead in this Parliament as promised in the SNP manifesto – something else SCF have been vigorously lobbying on. This will pick up from the work that was abandoned in the last Parliament but will be wider than the previously planned bill. Many changes have universal agreement and getting approval shouldn’t be a problem - other changes not so much. But there will be work with stakeholders to agree what is possible and then a public consultation. The issue, as before, will be parliamentary and committee time. Last time, the bill was crowded out by Brexit related legislation - this time we still have a lot of agricultural support legislation to get through. Issues around getting a mortgage on a croft and who owns the carbon on croft land are still on the table for resolution.
The other good news is that the Crofting Commission have had a budget increase which will allow them to recruit 14 more staff. This will surely help get rid of the backlog of regulatory requests and let them do more about getting vacant, derelict and absentee crofts back into use – lack of resources has always been their excuse so now the opportunity is there for them to improve their performance to a more acceptable level.
And if you want to investigate further on peatland restoration following my article last month, the Commission now have information on their website – crofting.scotland.gov, click on common grazings and go to peatland restoration.
