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Political sorts in Scotland like to produce statistics like "70% of the land area of Scotland is owned by 500 people!" in order to shock people into supporting
by JetSetWilly 11y ago
Political sorts in Scotland like to produce statistics like "70% of the land area of Scotland is owned by 500 people!" in order to shock people into supporting their generally redistributive political views - it is endlessly brought up.
But when you factor in land area value - if you could distort the area of Scotland such that the land value and the area were 1:1 - then suddenly it doesn't look anything like as bad. As the market says that owning a 4 bedroom flat in the west end of Glasgow in fact is worth more then 10,000 acres of land in the highlands.
Given as well that Scotland has very robust "right to roam" - people can walk on privately owned land as long as it isn't your back garden - and also laws to allow "wild camping" and so on, it just doesn't seem like that big of an issue to me either.
But nationalists in every country become obsessed with who owns the country, especially if it is people outwith the country, people against their cause etc - the SNP are no different.
- petewailes 11y agoAs someone who's considering buying in Scotland in the not vastly distant future, this. It's a question of what the land is used for and the scale of it.
- willyt 11y agoI'm not Scottish but I live in the Highlands. I think it's less to do with nationalism and more to do with to do with security of tenure. A lot of rural housing and farmland is owned by these large estates. The houses that have not been converted to holiday lets are often badly maintained and leased on very short term tenancies by absentee landlords. Tenant farmers on these estates have the additional problem that they can be also be evicted from the farmland.