Outer Hebrides leads community land ownership

Scotland’s Chief Statistician has published the Estimate of Community Owned Land in Scotland 2017 showing there were 562,230 acres in community ownership as of June 2017 — 2.9% of the total land area of Scotland.

Community groups who own land parcels and assets are widespread across Scotland — but the area of land in community ownership is concentrated in two local authorities: Highland and Na h‑Eileanan Siar (Outer Hebrides).

Outer Hebrides contains 385,340 acres of land in community ownership and Highland contains 141,912 acres — that equates to 93.7% (527,252 acres) of the total land in community ownership in Scotland.

The 2017 release is the first Estimate of Community Owned Land in Scotland publication.

The publication will track progress towards the Scottish Government’s target of having one million acres of land in Scotland in community ownership by the end of 2020.

As at June, there were 492 land parcels/assets in community ownership owned by 403 community groups.

In the first six months of 2017, six additional land parcels/assets came into community ownership, an additional 94.23 acres.