Imaginative approaches needed for community buy out of Buccleuch's Langholm Moor
Andrew Thin, Chair of the Scottish Land Commission, has welcomed the Scottish Land Fund award to the Langholm Initiative towards the community purchase of Buccleuch Estates' Langholm Moor, and encourages negotiations to continue to explore all options for community control of the land.
"We encourage both Buccleuch Estates and the Langholm Initiative to continue the constructive approach to negotiations to date and explore all options that would lead to community ownership or control over the land. Normalising community ownership across Scotland is likely to need imaginative approaches to raising capital and to governance models.
"Our review of international experience suggests there is scope in Scotland for more hybrid ownership models that blend private, community and charitable sector resource and expertise together. Outside of Scotland these distinctions are much less defined. Modernising our land ownership is likely to include a much wider diversity of ownership structures that create opportunities for many more people to have a stake in the benefits of land ownership."
