Imagine being in a place where community organisations have wide-ranging powers over land ownership and use.
The case studies illustrate the effectiveness of a combined approach to delivering land use change and diversified ownership. Planning in Scotland regulates land use change and development – all landowners, regardless of who they are, need the same consents for development on their land. This veneer of objectivity has been implicated with the unequal impacts of planning (Ellis, Citation2015)– planning is at once objective, but also operating in complex unequal contexts imbued with power. What the Scottish model offers is an attempt to rebalance land governance within this unequal context, with substantive power available to community organisations.
The Scottish community landownership model requires community bodies with public interest aims and local democratic oversight, which can work across both land ownership and land use. This added level of democracy at the most local levels creates responsive, flexible local institutions which can deliver on projects that meet locally-identified needs, address challenging issues like market failures, or open space for creative approaches to inclusion or heritage.
Community organisations have an increasing range of tools to implement their visions over land, with simple steps like commenting on a planning application, or electing local representatives, through to meaningful development powers in the public interest. The point is not that every community will want to, or should, own or develop land or buildings. Rather, the point is that the land governance system should allow them to do this if they want to.
Planning Theory & Practice Volume 24, 2023 - Issue 3