Community Engagement Obligations and draft large land holdings guidance under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025
Community Engagement Obligations: Land Management Plans - publication and presentation
This section includes questions on how LMPs should be published, and the extent to which there should be strict requirements on how they are set out.
Publication of LMPs
Regulations and guidance need to set out how LMPs should be made publicly available.
LMPs need to be accessible to local communities. There was support during the development of the 2025 Act for LMPs to be available online in a single location and set out in an accessible format, to make them easy to understand. We expect a single website to be used, hosted by a public sector organisation. There would be costs to the public sector to host the LMPs on a single website.
Presentation of Land Management Plans
There are currently no requirements for how LMPs should be set out.
During the development of the 2025 Act, many stakeholders supported providing a template for LMPs as part of guidance. Landowners would not be required to follow this template, but could choose to use all or parts of it. The guidance would provide support for landowners preparing a LMP while still allowing flexibility for LMPs to be presented in the way that is most appropriate for individual landholdings.
We do not intend that LMPs must follow a format set out in regulations. Instead we will set out what information must be included in the LMP (via regulations) and what should be included (via guidance). This will allow landowners to tailor the format and settings of their LMP(s) to individual needs and circumstances.