Farming: 'Put power back in hands of land users'

It MAY not have been the response that the Scottish Government was looking for from its consultation on its land use strategy, but the view of Raymond Henderson, forestry consultant with land agency Bidwells, was that government should return land use decision-making to local managers.

Speaking in Perth this week, he said he worried about the all-encompassing nature of the published proposals and feared that those working on the land would end up being increasingly answerable to centralised organisations with no concept of rural economics.

"We have already reached a point where doing something in the country is difficult because we have more and more people controlling our actions," he said.

Henderson had earlier heard retired lawyer Alasdair Fox describe the government document setting out the land use options for the future as a "remarkable collection of platitudes".

Yet, said Fox, the document made no linkage with the "hundreds of layers of government" that influenced and determined decisions made about the countryside. These included determination of planning applications where differing views existed on renewable energy applications.

Neither did the document refer to legislation that placed restrictions on land use.

He referred to the 2003 Land Reform Act, where he believed there were major unnecessary complications and restrictions relating to farm tenancies.

Jo Ellis from the government responded that specific policies would not change overnight. The vision was for the land use strategy to set the general direction up until 2050. Its appearance was part of legislation relating to the climate change agenda.

However, Jackie McCreery, in putting forward some initial thoughts on behalf of the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association, pointed out that future governments would have the right to change policies at five-year intervals.

Her main concern with the proposals was that there seemed to be an over-riding message that the land belonged to everyone and not to the landowner. She pointed out that how land was used determined the economics of land-based businesses. As an example, she said that environmental constraints had either to be viable to work or landowners had to be compensated for the restrictions to their businesses.

She wondered what other businesses would allow their terms of operation to be dictated by outside interests.

While she admitted the document referred to land use and not to land tenure, she had a niggling worry that this might change.

Jonnie Hall from NFU Scotland had similar worries over restrictions being placed on working farm businesses.

Land was Scotland's number one asset, he said. If the long-term aim was to achieve a very wide range of benefits, he warned it was quite possible that none of these would be reached.