…the blog and website of Andy Wightman
Image: Allan MacRae, John Mackenzie, Michael Forsyth and Bill Ritchie 1993 When I first became interested in land rights in Scotland, I remember reading an article in Crann-tara in 1978 by Danus Skene in which he observed “It once befell me,
Continue readingThe good citizens of the Royal Burgh of Auchterarder face being banned from walking across their common land because of the risk that they might choose to stop and gaze across at the Ryder Cup golf competiton taking place on the
Continue readingToday, Scottish Labour published “Together We Can” – a document outlining its vision for the future of Scotland. This follows the publication of its Devolution Commission (2.1Mb pdf) proposals on Wednesday – see my blog on that in relation to the
Continue readingThe Scottish Affairs Committee of the House of Commons has published an Interim Report on land reform in Scotland. Full details here.
Continue readingExactly two years ago today, the Scottish Affairs Committee of the House of Commons published its report on the future of the Crown Estate in Scotland. Its conclusions were unequivocal. The responsibilities of the Crown Estate Commissioners in Scotland (CEC)
Continue readingIan McHarg died this day in 2001 (NY Times obituary). He was a Scottish landscape architect who made his name in the University of Pennsylvania where he founded the world famous Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning in1955. He
Continue readingOn 23 February 2014, the Sunday Herald revealed that Timothy Congdon, UKIP’s economic spokesperson, had benefitted from wind energy developments on his land in Argyll and Caithness. Today (4 March) it was revealed that he has stood down from the
Continue readingToday, the Scottish Green Party published a report authored by myself on renewing local democracy. There is no need to say a great deal in this blog other than to highlight the fact that there are two inquiries currently underway
Continue readingOn 22 January, the Scottish Government published an interesting map showing the density of tenanted agricultural land per parish (1162kb pdf here). What struck me about the map was the apparent coincidence of those parishes with >75% of the land
Continue readingMonday 20 January 2014 SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT Enterprise and Environment Tavish Scott (Shetland Islands) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): To ask the Scottish Government what the definition of “fairer” is in the Minister for Environment and Climate Change’s comment to BBC Scotland that
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