Andrew Bibby
The views expressed in this post are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of all members of the Gritstone co-operative.
It is, of course, excellent news that a local community campaign has found the wherewithal to raise £3.8m to buy around 5000 acres of the Langholm moorland estate in southern Scotland from the Duke of Buccleuch. Langholm follows several other examples in Scotland where community endeavour has successfully brought former privately-owned estates into community ownership.
When it comes to land reform Scotland is surely leading the way. And land reform is arguably what we need throughout this island if we are to ensure that our landscapes are managed as they should be: for conservation, for public recreation and enjoyment, for sustainable farming, and not simply for commercial profit. Everyone who walks in the countryside should appreciate the importance of who owns the land and what they choose to do with it.
So, as I say, excellent news. But. Nevertheless.
But nevertheless, why it was necessary for one of the richest landowners in Scotland to receive this bounty, funded partly from the public purse (The Scottish Land Fund contributed £1m), partly from charitable trusts (the estimable John Muir Trust kickstarted things with £100,000) and partly through ordinary people’s efforts, crowdfunding and the like?
Others have been asking this question. The day after the Guardian reported the news on November 2nd, one of its readers Harvey Sanders immediately wrote in to the editor with a letter: “Your article on the community buyout of part of Langholm Moor in Scotland… avoids the fundamental question of the ethics of such aristocratic hereditary landowners profiting from the sale of land that was, in most cases, originally granted to their forebears by the then monarch…Surely a more equitable process would be for such lands to be transferred to an appropriately established community trust at no cost,” he wrote.
A press release which has landed in my mailbox today makes a very similar point. “The local community is taking back part of Langholm Moor in Scotland from Richard Scott, the Duke of Buccleuch (or rather from a company called Buccleuch Estates whose true ownership is typically obscured in a chain of on-shore and off-shore companies). Much of the land that this Duke inherited was “given” to a 15th century ancestor of his by James II of Scotland in return for material aid, i.e. providing fighting peasants.” The press release comes from the Labour Land Campaign, a group within the labour movement promoting the idea of a Land Value tax.
One reason why I may be sympathetic to arguments such as these is that I have recently finished two excellent books. Nick Hayes’ provocative Book of Trespass (only recently published) sees him exploring the historical roots of several of Britain’s large private estates – as well as exploring (illicitly) inside the walls and fences put up to keep the public away from this forbidden land. For the specifically Scottish story, I recommend Andy Wightman’s writings, particularly his book The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland (and How They Got It). Both Hayes and Wightman force us to confront the question of why such large part of our particular share of the earth’s crust here in Britain is private property.
But actually there’s more to the Langholm story than this debate. ‘Langholm’ has, for more than twenty years, been a name that’s frequently cropped up whenever grouse shooting and moorland management has been discussed. In particular, it’s been at the forefront of an often bitter argument about whether a healthy population of birds of prey like hen harriers can coexist with commercial grouse shooting interests.
Langholm was the main moor focused on in a (controversial) 1990s study which appeared to suggest that the answer could be no. More recently, it’s been the locus for the 2008-2018 Langholm Moor Demonstration Project, a partnership between the Buccleuch estate, Scottish Natural Heritage, the RSPB and others. The aim was to achieve a ‘win/win’: healthy populations of raptors especially hen harriers and a successful commercial grouse shooting business. (The red grouse themselves of course were not asked where they stood in relation to this win/win scenario).
But actually the prize of a double win eluded the project. The end conclusion, at least as far as the Buccleuch estate was concerned, was that the estate – once the extra money for the project was withdrawn – couldn’t make a commercial go of things. Here’s what the project’s final report said: “After allowing for an average annual loss of grouse to other causes, the number of grouse able to be shot without stopping grouse population growth was limited. Shooting a bag likely to generate enough revenue to sensibly contribute toward the management costs would certainly have been unsustainable.”
So I think we now know why the Duke of Buccleuch may have been prepared to let go of this small part of his immense land-holdings: it wasn’t commercially viable to run the moors for grouse shooting. Fortunately for the Duke there was a Plan B: take the £3.8m. Let the community do what they will with it.
Image: Red Grouse (Photo By MPF, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
