Scottish Land Commission To Develop Proposals For Compulsory Sale Orders To Make Use Of Derelict And Vacant Land And Buildings

The Scottish Land Commission has announced that they have started developing proposals for a new Compulsory Sale Order (CSO) power. The creation of the power is one of 62 recommendations which were brought forward by the Land Reform Review Group (LRRG) in 2014.

The Scottish Government has estimated that, as of 2016 there were 12,435 hectares of derelict and vacant land, with over two-thirds of this land reported to be privately owned. It has been estimated that large areas of such land have been vacant for between ten and 20 years and it is intended that the CSO power will help to realise the potential of these neglected sites that are often unsightly and prone to vandalism.

The CSO power will be used by local authorities to compel a landowner to sell their land at public auction if they determine that it is not in public interest for them to retain land which is not being used or sold.

Although the SLC will have a public consultation on their proposals before they are considered by the Scottish Government, the LRRG's Report, 'The Land of Scotland and the Common Good' provides some suggestions on additional mechanisms which may be required for the CSO power, and how it may work in practice.

Who would be able to use the power? In addition to local authorities, the powers could also be granted to public agencies who can currently exercise Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) powers. Furthermore, it has been suggested by the LRRG that other community councils or bodies may have a statutory right to request that a local authority uses a CSO over an area of land if it had not initiated it itself. The LRRG considers that this is reasonable as it is often the local community who suffer most from vacant or derelict land, and they may have an alternative use for such areas of land.

What land could be subject to a CSO? The LRRG has said that in principle the CSO would apply to 'abandoned' land that remained in a vacant or derelict condition for an unacceptable period of time.

A new publicly available statutory register would be created for vacant or derelict land, using information that is already collected by local authorities, which would be supplied to the Scottish Government. There would be a right of appeal by landowners who think that their land has been wrongly included on the register, or by other parties who feel that land has been wrongly omitted from the register. In these situations, the local authority would decide if the land meets the...