Meanwhile Community Land Scotland, which represents Scotland's community landowners has in submissions to the UK Scottish Affairs Committee and Scottish Scotland Bill Committee, for radical reform of the way the Crown Estate operates in Scotland and for some of its roles should be taken over by community groups. MPs and MSPs are looking into the future of the Crown Estate's functions in Scotland at the moment.
The Crown Estate in rural Scotland owns 91,400 acres (37,000ha) of agricultural land, 12,300 acres (5,000ha) of forestry, residential and commercial property, salmon fishing rights, the Fochabers and Glenlivet estates in Moray, Whitehill Estate in Midlothian and land surrounding Stirling Castle. Not to mention 50% of the foreshore and beds of tidal rivers in Scotland and almost all the seabed out to 12 nautical miles.
For the record Community Land Scotland's members own some 500,000 acres (202,343ha). Recently a Scottish Agricultural College (SAC) report produced by researcher Dr Sarah Skerratt, suggests that community land ownership plays a successful role in encouraging people to live and work in remote and rural areas.
The SAC report noted that while many communities did not have the range of skills and capacity they needed for the task of purchasing and developing their land. People worked to overcome the challenges by bringing in training, guidance and support to help when they necessary. There is no reason why the Crown Estate's holdings in Wales should not also bring communal benefits to the Welsh people.
While not everything that works in Scotland will work in Wales the concept of local communities benefiting from ownership of local resources, be they land or energy or redevelopment schemes for that matter is something that we need to develop. There should be no barriers to this happening right across Wales basically wherever there are communities (urban or rural) willing to give it a go.
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