Community Engagement Obligations and draft large land holdings guidance under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025

The consultation questions are included here for your reference. Please click 'Begin consultation' at the bottom of this page to proceed.

1. Do you agree with the proposal that the definition of ‘communities’ should be set out in guidance rather than in regulations?
2. Do you agree with the proposed definition of communities?
3. What steps, actions or activities must a landowner undertake to meaningfully engage with a local community on the development of their landholding’s LMP? These would be included in the regulations.
4. What steps, actions or activities should a landowner undertake to meaningfully engage with a local community on the development of their landholding’s LMP? These would be included in guidance.
5. Must a landowner undertake participatory engagement in the regulations? For example, participatory engagement could include holding local meetings or carrying out workshops. This would be included in the regulations.
6. If you answered yes, what should participatory engagement look like?
7. Are there any specific challenges or barriers to engagement between landowners and communities that may impact engagement on LMPs?
8. Are there any specific issues that should be considered in the approach to engaging with island communities?
9. How should the land owner share feedback on how views shared by the community have been considered in decision-making?
10. How should the guidance for engagement on Land Management Plans (LMPs) interact with the 2016 Act Guidance on engaging communities in decisions relating to land and what clarity is required?
11. Is there any other regularly-updated guidance on engagement with communities that should be considered when developing requirements to engage on LMPs?
12. Do you agree that landowners should have flexibility on what land is included in an LMP as proposed above? 
13. Do you think there should be limits on when multiple large land holdings can be included within a single LMP?
14. What factors should be taken into account when determining whether multiple large land holdings can appropriately be covered by a single LMP?
15. Should the owner be required to provide the name or names of the persons or entities (such as a company) that own the land?
16. Where the land is owned by a non-natural person, should the landowner be required to provide a link to any information held by Companies House or entries in the RCI in relation to the landowner?
17. Should the LMP include contact details for an person who is responsible for the management of the landholding?
18. Should the landowner have to provide a map of the landholding (or maps, for example where the plan covers multiple landholdings)?
19. Should the map provided for a LMP be of the same quality required for registration on the Land Register?
20. Should maps be prepared to scale, which correspond to a scale used by recognised maps such as Ordnance Survey maps?
21. What is important to include in requirements for a map to make it accessible, so that people can understand the map?
22. What information should be included on a map and why?
23. Do you agree with our proposed approach to tenanted land?
24. What information should landowners be encouraged to share about tenanted and/or croft land and why?
25. What information should a landowner provide to demonstrate how they are complying or intend to comply with the Scottish Outdoor Access Code?
26. What information should a landowner provide to demonstrate how they are complying or intend to comply with the code of practice on deer management?
27. Is there any other information which would not be included in a deer management plan which should be included in the LMP to meet the requirement to set out how the landowner is complying or intends to comply with the code of practice on deer management?
28. What information should a landowner set out to demonstrate that they are managing or plan to manage the land in a way that contributes towards meeting the national net-zero emissions targets?
29. What information should a landowner set out to demonstrate that they are managing or plan to manage the land in a way that contributes towards adapting to climate change? For example, to support the prevention of wildfires, manage potential flood risk, or restore peatland.
30. What information should a landowner set out to demonstrate that they are managing or plan to manage the land in a way that contributes towards increasing biodiversity?
31. Which information (which is not already required by the 2025 Act) should be required to be included in a LMP and why?
32. Please provide any views or evidence on how this information could be collected by landowners, where that would be required.
33. If you had to choose the most important 5 pieces of information required to be included in a LMP (in addition to the existing requirements), what would they be?
34. Should there be any specific requirements for LMPs for landholdings that cover all or part of an inhabited island?
35. The guidance for LMPs could also set out topics which are not required to be included by the regulations but could be included in LMPs to promote best practice. Which information do you think the guidance should suggest is included as best practice and why?
36. Do you agree with the approach of allowing LMPs to link to other plans that provide the required information?
37. If you answered no to the previous question, how would you propose to limit duplication of information?
38. The list of existing sources of information above does not include all possible sources. Are there any other publicly available sources of information about landholdings which we should consider?
39. Are there any other reasons that certain areas of land should be exempt from LMP requirements such as on engagement or providing other information?
40. Are there particular types of change that you view should normally be regarded as significant and trigger further community engagement?
41. Are there particular types of change that you view should normally be regarded as minor and not require further community engagement?
42. Do you agree that further detail on what constitutes a “significant change” to a LMP should be provided through guidance rather than through a definition in regulations?
43. Do you agree that guidance should explain that a change to a LMP is likely to be significant where it is likely to have a significant impact on the local community, taking account of the approach set out in the Guidance on Engaging Communities in Decisions Relating to Land?
44. What should landowners consider when they review their LMP?
45. Should landowners engage with the community as part of their review, and why?
46. If landowners do not need or plan to revise their LMP following a review, should they need to produce a statement or short report of the review?
47. In what other ways should the landowner be required to make a LMP available, beyond a public sector hosted website? For example, make a copy available by email on request; share with the local authority; host on their own website where available.
48. Should an administrative fee be charged for (you can select more than one answer):
49. Do you have any comments on the proposed approach to presenting LMPs?
50. What information, if any, should a community body be legally required to include?
51. What other information could be helpful and should be included in the guidance?
52. Should there be any legally required process or guidance setting out what the landowner must do if the request does not meet the criteria set out?
53. What should the process be and what should be covered in the guidance to support this?
54. Should there be any further process or requirements set out in the regulations or guidance if the request is accepted?
55. Should there be any process after a refusal, either in regulations or guidance, such as an option to ask follow up questions, or any other process after a refusal?
56. Our view is that there should be a limit to the number of times that community bodies can make a reasonable request for a specific piece of land to an individual landowner. What should this limit be?
57. Are there any other steps or processes that should be legally required for either the community body, the landowner or any other party (for example, an organisation who could consider appeals)?
58. Is there anything else that it will be important for the guidance to include?
59. Please set out below if you think there should be any other differences in the process between requests to lease land or a building and requests to constitute the land as a croft(s).
60. How long should the grace period be?
61. Should implementation be phased for different groups of landholding?
62. If yes, which approach would you prefer?
63. How long should the transition period be?
64. Now you have read the guidance, how confident are you that you would know how to identify a large land holding?
65. Do you have any comments on the examples used in the guidance?
66. Are there any land ownership or control arrangements that are not currently covered in the guidance that you think should be included?
67. Do you have any comments on the definition of a large land holding in the 2025 Act?
68. Do you have any views on further guidance or support that could be helpful in relation to overlapping large land holdings?