The Land of Scotland and the Common Good: LRRG’s Final Report

The Land Reform Review Group (LRRG) published its much anticipated final report, ‘The Land of Scotland and the Common Good’, yesterday. The Scottish Government established the Group in July 2012 with a remit to develop “innovative and radical” land reform proposals addressing greater diversity of land ownership and ownership types, support for communities in land acquisition and management and new relationships between land, people, economy and environment in Scotland.

That’s a daunting set of tasks to say the least, particularly given the complex, contentious and expansive nature of the ‘Land Question’ in Scotland. It’s therefore to the LRRG’s great credit that ‘The Land of Scotland and the Common Good’ largely succeeds in fulfilling its remit; all the more so given the Group’s much maligned Interim Report published in May last year and the disruption caused by the resignations of its two original Vice-Chairs, Professor James Hunter and Dr Sarah Skerratt for personal and work-related reasons respectively.