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

What is covered in this section

Regulations and guidance will need to set out further detail on requirements for landowners to consider a reasonable request from a community body to:

• lease land or any part of it (including any building on it).
• constitute any part of the land as a croft(s).

As with the LMP requirements, these apply to large land holdings.

This section seeks views on some of the definitions and processes that will be used to support those policies. In particular we are welcoming views on whether these should be in the regulations or in supplementary guidance. To avoid repetition, the questions and proposals below apply both to community body requests to lease land or buildings and constitute the land as a croft(s). 

Making an application

We want to make sure everyone is clear what a community body should provide to meet the standard of a ‘reasonable request’. There are two approaches we could take: 

1) The regulations could set out only that there must be a reasonable request and the guidance would say what information should be provided.

2) The regulations could set out some information that must be provided to make it a reasonable request, with further recommended information in guidance.

Some examples of the type of information that could be needed for a ‘reasonable request’ are listed below – however this is just an example and we would welcome views on other items that could be included. We think ‘reasonable’ should mean balancing a minimum standard to ensure requests are meaningful and not vexatious but also not burdensome for community bodies or acting as a disincentive.

• Details of the community body, including their Scottish Charity register number if appropriate and/ or confirmation letter showing that they are a community body as defined in section 34(4) of the 2003 Act.
• The address of the community body and preferred point of contact,
• The community body’s proximity or relationship to the large land holding,
• Clearly identifying the land or building which they are interested in leasing or having constituted as a croft(s), for example by including a map of the identified area,
• A brief description of what the community body intends to use the land or building for and how this use meets local needs and aspirations,
• How long they desire to lease the land or building for, if not indefinite.