…the blog and website of Andy Wightman
This blog post is a response to the Scottish Government’s current consultation on a future land reform bill. Detaisl can be found here. The consultation closes on Sunday 30 October 2022. The text below is not part of my consultation
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Pictured – Kinloch Castle I am just back from four days on the Isle of Rùm. There have been four phases in the history of Rùm. The first and longest was the pre-clearance period stretching from pre-history up until 1826
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This blog is the second in a series of blogs about the Scottish Government’s consultation – Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation (see this page for details). It follows a previous blog that provided an overview of the proposals.
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Introduction On Monday 4 July, the Scottish Government published its consultation paper “Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation” (1). The consultation is designed to inform the introduction of a Land Reform Bill by the end of 2023. I spent
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Today marks an important moment in the struggle to reclaim rights for the people over common land. In May 2005, I discovered an extant commonty in the Parish of Carluke (pictured red above). Commonties are ancient areas of common land,
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In September 2020, the Scottish Parliament held a debate on ‘dirty camping’. Many MSPs spoke out against the poor behaviour their constituents had witnessed over the summer. This behaviour was caused not only by a lack of understanding about how
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Text of a 15 minute speech Good afternoon friends. I am delighted to be with you this morning at our autumn conference. As we prepare for a Scottish election next year and local elections the year after, green politics has
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Last Wednesday I spoke in a debate on ‘dirty camping’. Over the summer, we have seen some careless, reckless, and anti-social behaviour by people visiting scenic areas of Scotland. This is a matter of great concern to many people, especially
Continue readingFollowing my previous blog on the offshore interests of the Scott/Buccleuch family, the Panama Papers have emerged. I look forward to interrogating the 2.6 terabytes of data once it is made available for public examination in early May. Meanwhile, I
Continue readingby Andy Wightman and Carole Ross Buccleuch Estates Ltd. Mr Richard Scott (sometimes referred to as the Duke of Buccleuch) is frequently cited as the owner of the largest extent of private land in the United Kingdom. Yet, this has
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