The £6 million Scottish Land Fund is to be increased by 50% and will continue to help communities to take control of land at least until the next Scottish Parliament elections in 2016.
The announcement came as First Minister Alex Salmond prepared to address the annual conference of Community Land Scotland Conference – the umbrella organisation for community landowners such as Eigg, Gigha, Assynt and Knoydart which now account for more 500,000 acres of Scotland.
The fund was launched a year ago for a three-year period with £1m in the first year, £2m in the second and £3m in the third. Now it is to get another £3m for its additional fourth year.
The move will be welcomed by those considering community buyouts of local assets.
Mr Salmond said: "This additional funding is a signal of the Scottish Government's continued commitment to community ownership and our recognition that in tough economic times it is more important than ever to empower communities to help themselves."
The Scottish Government's Land Fund has so far helped five community buyouts: Midlem in the Scottish Borders, Colintrave and Glendaruel in Argyll, Coigach in Easter Ross, Mull of Galloway in Wigtownshire and Lossiemouth in Moray.
The first Scottish Land Fund was established in 2001 with lottery cash and closed in 2006 when much of its work transferred to other lottery programmes.
It awarded £13.9m to 188 community groups, which allowed them to buy or gain control of 173,000 acres of local land along with 67 buildings and amenities, and create 186 full-time and 219 part-time jobs.
l New legislation could improve crofting laws, Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse has said.
The Scottish Government will "consider what further legislation may be required", he told MSPs.
It came as Tory MSP Alex Fergusson urged the SNP administration to "start all over again" with crofting law which he called a monster.
Liberal Democrat Tavish Scott said there is a desperate need for crofting law to be brought together into one piece of legislation.
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