Listen to this if you want a crash course on why genuinely progressive, democratising land reform in Scotland needs to go far beyond what’s proposed in the Scottish Government’s paltry Land Reform Bill.

BLOG in which I challenge some of the claims made in a recent podcast by Ariane Burgess in an interview with James MacKessack-Leitch I welcome the serious engagement in policy issues but there is a long way to go to achieve the level of detail & analysis required. andywightman.scot/2024/05/land-r…

Enjoyed discussing the new Land Reform Bill and other land reform issues in the latest episode of Ariane Burgess Regenerative Scotland podcast along with Heather Yearwood & Carey Doyle

Excellent report Severin Carrell We need proper legal protection and better funding MG ALBA to achieve more of this. 25% share gives viewers more bang for our buck. And we can show every £1 invested in MG gives a return of £1.34 Plus we’ve created more than 300 jobs.

Gaelic TV is the underfunded 'orphan' of British broadcasting, says MG ALBA chair John Morrison, as filming starts on new Gaelic thriller 📺📽️

Excellent The Times and The Sunday Times Scotland Thunderer from Andrew Dunlop about his sensible and much needed House of Lords amendment to the Media Bill in support of MG ALBA + BBC ALBA Strong cross party support including Kate Forbes MSP To safeguard #Gaelic broadcasting this has to happen.

This week 100s more council-employed carers in Scotland went on strike for equal pay as the campaign continues to grow following the 2018 Glasgow Women’s Strike. Scotland’s councils face being bankrupted, GMB says.

My story in today’s The Observer:

theguardian.com/world/2024/apr…

And as a number of projects closed within days of each other a few weeks ago, Scotland’s creatives express their worries about the future of the nation’s arts sector.

“We’ve always punched above our weight, but we’ll end up with a cultural black hole.”

theguardian.com/culture/2024/a…

If there is no flexibility in this new condition it will have a massive impact on the affordability and resilience of any new-build croft house. Once again, a centralised Scottish Government that does not consider the sustainability of rural and island communities.

BLOG - Analysis of all land sales in 2021 which would have triggered intervention had proposed Land Reform Bill been in force. Of 5 qualifying sales, none are likely to have been impacted by Bill and 4 of the 5 were sold to existing owners of land. andywightman.scot/2024/04/land-r…

Well worth a listen.

Very useful analysis of the Scottish bill, and an observation that proponents of a Community Right to Buy for England/Wales (I'm one) should dwell on. Even more so knowing that Scots also have a v generous public grant for land buyouts. It's not a silver bullet.

“With the abandonment of the Public Interest test, nothing on tax, no controls on offshore entities, no conditions on public money, no regulation of who can buy the land being sold, it is hard to see how the claims made for this Bill can be sustained.” Damning from Andy Wightman

Rocket Post island added to football club's badge bbc.in/4a8ISA8

“This Bill is the least ambitious land reform bill ever introduced to the Scottish Parliament.” Essential reading from Andy Wightman

I've finally distilled my thoughts on the new Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and included them in what might generously be called a blog post. It's over 10,000 words long, so be warned (when I posted this on LinkedIn it said it was a 42 min read). basedrones.wordpress.com/2024/03/26/lan… #landreform

THREAD I am pleased to publish Who Owns Scotland 2024, the first comprehensive empirical analysis of landownership in Scotland since 2012. Thank you to the Guardian for covering the story 1/10 theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/m…

Final plug for my Focus piece on the Scottish Government’s Land Reform Bill for this week’s West Highland Free Press ⁦WHFP⁩

I’ve written this Focus piece on the Scottish Government’s recently published Land Reform Bill for this week’s ⁦WHFP⁩