…the blog and website of Andy Wightman
“The latest developments in the story of Parliament House (see previous blog) are as follows. ONE Scottish Green Party Councillor Gavin Corbett has had meetings with senior officials in the Council and shares his thoughts here. TWO The Leader and
Continue readingImage: De Wit version of Gordon of Rothiemay’s original 1647 plan showing Parliament House seven years after construction. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the subject of
Continue readingIn 2001,the 10,000 acre Cluny Estate, near Laggan in Inverness-shire was bought by Mr Alain Angelil for £3.6 million. He put it on the market on 12 August 2013 (media release & sales brochure 10.4Mb pdf). Earlier this month, the estate was
Continue readingThe land illustrated above (Midmar Paddock on the eastern slopes of Blackford Hill, Edinburgh) is currently for sale via Strutt & Parker (sales brochure here – 925kb pdf). The reason for publishing this blog is to ask “who owns this land?
Continue readingOver the past 20 years, I have uncovered many examples of areas of common land across Scotland – remnants of commonties, greens, loans and the like. Unfortunately, little is being done to protect them from land-grabs by an assortment of
Continue readingAmong the recommendations of the LRRG are that more effort should be made to complete the Land Register and that patterns of rural landownership should be mapped and better understood. In response to publication of the report, the Scottish Government
Continue readingIn 1965, Educational Films of Scotland made fascinating film narrated by Scottish actor Moultrie Kelsall about the history of Grangemouth from 1750 to modern times (1965). Among the highlights of the film is the focus on the role of Grangemouth
Continue readingYesterday in the UK Parliament, the Prime Minister confirmed that he would co-operate with the Scottish Affairs Select Committee to establish “who owns and controls the great landed estates in Scotland, in order that they can minimise both tax avoidance and
Continue readingThe Mirror carries a report today (13 April 2013) that the house that Margaret Thatcher lived in for the past 20 years is “owned” by a company called Bakeland Property Company Ltd. registered in the British Virgin Islands. The story
Continue readingThe Guardian are running a series of investigative articles on the use of offshore tax havens to acquire land & property in London. It was timely, therefore to see Steven Vaas’s article in the Herald on Monday which revealed that
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