Community Land Scotland, with the support of the Scottish Government, has been working to get a better
understanding of Scotland’s “community land cold spots”. The process started with desk-based research and
the results have informed this paper.
The following areas were researched:
• Urban – rural split
• Deprivation on an SIMD and local authority level, including child poverty levels
• Concentration of social enterprise or other community-led activity
• Social capital
• Transience / inward and outward migration
There were 612 assets owned by 422 community organisations in 2020, according to the Scottish
Government’s Community Ownership in Scotland 2020 report. (This report measures ownership of assets
where membership of the landowner is open to a local community with a geographical limit on members, the
group has a defined aim of benefiting the local community and is non-profit making.) The report uses
Registers of Scotland data, so it only includes acquisitions that are on the Registers of Scotland by the end of
2020.
Community landownership originated in the Highlands and Islands. What these communities were able to
achieve has inspired others across the country and the evidence shows that community ownership is now
spreading quickly across Scotland’s rural areas.
Prior to 2016, when the Scottish Land Fund and the Community Right to Buy were extended to places with
populations of over 10,000 people, community ownership existed in some urban areas but at much lower
levels. Since 2016, the number of community owned assets in towns and cities has grown but uptake has
been higher in some areas than others.
The full document can be found here.
