If the 1100 islanders of Barra and Vatersay want to take control of their land they are going to have to pay for some of it – under an act introduced by the last Conservative Government.
Public meetings have been held across the islands and there has been a positive response to the idea of investigating taking control of 16,000 acres.
In 2003, the late clan chief Ian Macneil agreed to donate his crofting estate on Barra to the then Scottish Executive. However, he made clear that if islanders wanted the 9000 acres, they were to be given the estate free of charge at a later date.
There was also more than 7000 acres already owned by ministers. When the Macneil transfer was completed in 2004 the then rural affairs minister Ross Finnie said: "We intend to manage this land with a view to its transfer to community ownership at a time appropriate to the islanders of Barra."
This raised local hopes that there might be no charge, but a spokesman for the Scottish Government said: "The Transfer of Crofting Estates Act sets out that any government-owned land sold would be subject to the independent valuation applied by the District Valuer."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article