Research and reports

Scale and Concentration: Research review on the effects associated with concentrated and large scale land ownership in Scotland

A review by SRUC of previous literature and a descriptive analysis of Scotland's current pattern of landownership.

Land Focus: Land Ownership by Trusts

The Scottish Government asked the Land Commission to look at ownership of land by charities and trusts and consider potential impacts on the public interest. This Land Focus paper aims to set out information about trust status in land ownership and some of the associated issues to consider.

Repeopling Emptied Places

Centenary reflections on the significance and the enduring legacy of the Land Settlement (Scotland) Act 1919

Community Engagement Baseline Surveys Report 2019

The effectiveness of the Scottish Government guidance must be assessed three years after publication. The Commission has carried out two surveys, one for landowners and one for communities, to establish a baseline understanding of the level of awareness and participation in engagement activities.

Land Focus: Land Value Tax Briefing Paper

Land values have increased more than 450% since 1995, outstripping the growth of assets on the land by a considerable margin. This has led many people to question how the benefits from increasing land values are distributed – and whether more needs to be done to ensure that the gains from rising land value benefit society as a whole.

Advice to Scottish Ministers on Community Ownership and Community Right to Buy

This paper provides advice to Scottish Ministers on the key findings and recommendations from the Scottish Land Commission’s review of community ownership mechanisms.

Compulsory Sales Orders: A proposal from the Scottish Land Commission

A new Compulsory Sales Order (CSO) power could tackle the blight of abandoned buildings and parcels of vacant and derelict land in town centres and communities across Scotland.

Land Focus: Land Value Capture

This briefing paper looks at land value capture, what it is and the Land Commission's work.

An assessment of historic attempts to capture land value uplift in the UK

Heriot Watt University was commissioned to review the UK's historic experience of land value capture and identify what lessons current policy makers could take from this experience.

Land Lines: Land, for the many, not the few? Limitations on the scale of land ownership

In this paper, the third in the Land Lines series, Peter Peacock looks at the scale of concentration of ownership of land in Scotland.

Land Lines: The delivery of public interest led development in Scotland

This, the second paper in the Land Lines series, Steven Tolson and Archie Rintoul look at the approaches adopted to achieve public interest led development in Scotland.

A Review of the Conduct of Agents of Agricultural Landlords and Tenants

A report to Scottish Ministers by Dr Bob McIntosh CBE, Tenant Farming Commissioner.