Crofters Commission should be abolished: report

Committee of inquiry wants to see land and house occupation tied to crofting use

News, 13 May 2008

Radical changes to crofting regulation and enforcement are proposed in a new report.

The recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry on Crofting, set up by the previous Scottish Executive and whose recommendations were published yesterday, would place restrictions on land used for crofting and croft house sites to ensure that the land was used in this way.

The Crofters' Commission would also be abolished and replaced by a new Federation of Local Crofting Boards, comprising between seven and 10 elected local crofting boards.

A new crofting and community development body would oversee the development of crofting, preferably as part of Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Other recommendations include:

all croft houses should be tied to residency;
any residency burden should be backdated to 12 May 2008, the date of publication of the report;
all sublets and tenancies should be approved by the local crofting boards;
Registers of Scotland should be responsible for maintaining the register of crofts;
a review of agricultural subsidies including single farm payment, the Less Favoured Area support scheme and the crofting countries agricultural grant scheme.

The committee was congratulated for its “radical approach” by the Minister for Environment Michael Russell.

He said: "The committee was asked to consult widely and to report back to the government with radical ideas on shaping the future of crofting. This is precisely what they have done and I congratulate them for it."

Offering a future

Mr Russell added that in safeguarding the crofting heritage "we must also ensure that it offers a viable and fulfilling way of life for future generations".

The issues will be debated in the parliament later this week.

If the government were to accept the report's recommendations, it could be expected to invite the parliament to apply any restrictions to croft house sites and crofts for which the application for consent to assign a croft or for which notification of the change of ownership of the land was received by the Crofters Commission after 12 May.

Such restrictions would also apply to croft house sites for which applications to decroft were received by the Crofters Commission after that date. Furthermore, any houses built on land that was under crofting tenure on 12 May and for which no application to decroft had been received would be subject to an enhanced burden that would tie the new owner not only to occupancy but also to working the land.