New legislation has been introduced aiming to change how land in Scotland is owned and managed, despite concerns from landowners and farmers.
The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, introduced to Scottish Parliament today, includes measures that will apply to large landholdings of over 1,000 hectares.
The legislation will have the power to prohibit sales in certain cases until ministers can consider the impact on the local community.
This could lead to some landholdings being lotted into smaller parts in a bid to 'help local communities', the Scottish government said.
Large landholdings of over 1,000 hectares represent more than 50% of Scotland’s land.
The Bill seeks to give communities more opportunities to own land through introducing advance notice of certain sales from these large landholdings.
Legal responsibilities will be placed on large landowners to show how they use their land and how that use contributes to policy priorities, such as addressing climate change.
These landowners will have to engage with local communities about how they use the land, the Scottish government said.
The Bill also includes a number of measures to reform tenant farming and small landholding legislation.
However, Scottish Land & Estates (SLE), a group representing rural businesses in Scotland, warned that it could "fail rural Scotland for generations".
Sarah-Jane Laing, chief executive of SLE said: “The Scottish government is using outdated ideology to punish those rural businesses making a huge contribution to Scotland.
“Rather than taking a common-sense approach to reflect the challenges that people living and working in rural Scotland face, Scottish Ministers are pursuing a destructive and disproportionate agenda against land-based businesses.
"Some of the measures signal a huge U-turn by Ministers from utilising land to pursue net zero towards a full-on attack on the property rights of large farms and estates.
“Ministers would not countenance taking the same approach to any other business sector."
But Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon said the legislation would allow the benefits and opportunities of Scotland’s land to be more widely shared.
“We do not think it is right that ownership and control of much of Scotland’s land is still in the hands of relatively few people," she said.
“We want to be a nation where rights and responsibilities in relation to land and its natural capital are fully recognised and fulfilled.
“Too often, people and communities feel powerless when the land they live on is sold with no prior warning – this Bill will help to change that."
