Chamber and committees

We have discussed sites of community significance. When Josh Doble mentioned that, I could not help thinking about the Taymouth castle estate. It is relatively small, but there is a huge amount of community interest in the assets, and other such examples have been mentioned in evidence. Is there a way in which we can define such things in the bill? It feels as though it is open to a lot of interpretation, but a way forward could be to say, “This is a hugely significant asset to the community, so aspects of the bill should apply”. I am tempted to go along that line, but I am interested in how we would define it. As with the definition of “community”, we could get into a bit of a grey area.

So that is reflected in planning legislation.

Okay. The committee has another question in relation to the minimum threshold for prohibiting and notifying land transfers—

I ask the panel to hold that thought. We will come back to it.

I am aware of a discussion at the moment in Aberfeldy about woodland crofts. Would that be part of the forestry plan with Forestry and Land Scotland, or does it belong in the local place plan, the land management plan or all three? There is a question in my head about how to make sense of that.

Josh Doble, do you want to come in?

Thank you.

Josh Doble, do you want to come in?

I come back to the fact that there is no minimum threshold for prohibiting land transfers or requiring notification to be provided of an intention to sell. The whole landholding needs to be above the wider threshold, but there is no minimum size for a transfer that falls within the prohibition and notification requirements. Do you support that? Do you think that there could be any unintended consequences?

We took some evidence from Atholl Estates, which talked about the very small transfers of land alongside footpaths or the backs of gardens that it might be involved in. It said that, as a larger estate, if it came under some of the proposed requirements as a result of there being no minimum threshold for the transfer of such very small assets, that would be problematic for the community as well as for it. Do you support the fact that there is no minimum threshold?

Do you mean that people are less likely to be open about their true feelings regarding land management?

That is a good example of significance—that is, if there were housing need in a community, and 1 hectare of land was available to be turned from temporary accommodation to permanent housing.

One issue that was raised with us was whether moving a fence by a couple of metres, say, would be captured by the bill. Might that be deemed to be not significant to the community? Could such cases, under the definition, be left out of the provisions?