Sites of Community Significance: Proactive Communities and the Land Reform Bill

Scotland's model of community empowerment, and community landownership specifically, is premised on community groups proactively addressing their needs. However, there is very little provision for community empowerment in the draft Land Reform Bill 2024.

What could strengthen proactive communities within the Land Reform Bill proposals? A community site designation, such as a ‘Site of Community Significance’, could reinforce the long-term Scottish Government commitment to supporting communities to address their land needs. Such a designation would provide an initial proactive marker of community land need to engage in the provisions of the bill. It could also better integrate the proposals of this Bill with the wider set of policies like Community Right to Buy and local place plans, moving towards simplification, integration, and strengthening of an increasingly complex policy framework.

This Insights Series reviews the context for such a policy and explores how it could work within Scottish Land Reform policy and practice.