Sustainable Development in Scottish Rural Communities: What can the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, Part 2, contribute?

Dr Aylwin L. Pillai, Lecturer in Law, University of Aberdeen, School of Law, Taylor Building, Old Aberdeen, ABERDEEN, AB24 3UB. Email: law239@abdn.ac.uk.

Sustainable development has emerged as an important political slogan in UK and Scottish government policies. Nevertheless, its meaning can be elusive. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, Part 2, offers an opportunity to examine a significant legislative attempt to put the principle into practice. Community land ownership achieved through this pre-emptive right of acquisition is intended to achieve sustainable development by empowering communities to manage the land according to their own economic, social and environmental objectives. Accordingly, communities must satisfy the Scottish Ministers that their community purposes and plans for the land are consistent with the principle of sustainable development before registering an interest in land or successfully utilising the right to buy procedure.

However, there are several difficulties with the approach to sustainable development enshrined in the legislation. This paper will: firstly, evaluate the sustainable development requirements of Part 2 of the Act; and, secondly, highlight the key features and some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Scottish approach to sustainable development revealed in recent Ministerial decisions under the community right to buy. For example, one of the key themes of the decisions is that community schemes will not be considered consistent with sustainable development if they lack potential for development or seek to thwart other development proposals for the land. Outwith the legislation, however, a number community ownership schemes have been successfully established which seek to promote sustainable development but at the same time were intended to prevent a particular development or ensure the status quo. This brings into focus some difficult questions about the interpretation of sustainable development held by Scottish communities and by the Scottish Ministers, particularly relating to where the balance can be struck between environmental protection and economic development.

The achievement of the sustainable development of Scottish rural communities is said to be the underlying policy goal behind Part 2 of the Act: Land Reform (Scotland) Bill Policy Memorandum, SP Bill 44 – PM, (The Stationery Office, Edinburgh, 2001), para.43.

E.g. Decision letter for Holmehill Limited, Case Number CB00016, issued by the Environment and Rural Affairs Department, Fisheries and Rural Development Group, 5 April 2005. Available on the Register of Community Interests in Land.

An example is the Woodhead and Windyhills Community Trust in Aberdeenshire which purchased the woodland in order to prevent quarrying: see, Dr Aylwin Pillai, Community Land Ownership in Scotland: Progress Towards Sustainable Development? PhD Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2005.