In basic terms, a community buyout is when a community group comes together to buy and look after an asset. This could be land, a building or even an existing business.
Benefits of a community buyout
The benefits of community buyouts might include:
- More opportunity to help wildlife and improve the area for local people.
- The opportunity to come up with creative solutions to local issues.
- The potential to create jobs in the local area.
- Improving the investment potential for the area, potentially leading to more investment in local businesses.
- Increasing a community’s sense of worth and independence, and giving people the opportunities to learn, work and grow together.
- Leading to an increase in population, especially in rural and isolated area, such as the Isle of Eigg buyout.
Local land owned and looked after by local people – what could be better?
Steps to a community buyout
If a community buyout sounds like something you’re interested in, we would encourage you to speak to Community Land Scotland; an organisation that helps communities buy land. They work to bring community landowners together and also provide advice and training for new community landowners.
Community Land Scotland helpfully lay out the below steps to complete a community buyout:
1. Research
- Contact Community Land Scotland (CLS)
- Find out what funding is available.
- Get in touch with the agencies that can support you through the journey.
- Look into options- Protocol or Community Right to Buy (CRtB):
- CLS has a Protocol for Negotiated Sales of Land with Scottish Land and Estates (SLE), which provides guidance for sales between SLE and CLS members.
- Community Right to Buy (CRtB) is a statutory route that allows communities the right to buy land when it comes up for sale.
- Identify who the landowner is.
2. Consult
- Hold a community meeting to explore the options.
- If there is community support, elect a Steering Group to take forward a possible purchase.
3. Lay the foundations
- Constitute a community body if required:
- The legal structure must have open membership within a specified geographic area.
- There may be additional requirements if using CRtB or applying to the Scottish Land Fund.
- Consult with the community and gather ideas on what people want.
- Write a brief for a feasibility study and find a contractor who can produce it.
- Register an interest in CRtB if required.
4. Progress the plans
- Carry out the feasibility study to determine the best and most practical ideas.
- Visit other community landowners.
- Write a business plan.
- Carry out technical work.
- Survey land and buildings and get contamination reports if required.
- Get a valuation for the land.
5. Present findings
- To the community.
- To the funders.
6. Get community agreement
- Get evidence that the community buy into the idea.
- If using CRtB or if requested by community, carry out a ballot on the whole community to get agreement to buy the land.
7. Commence buyout
- Appoint advisors for the sale.
- Finalise funding.
- Complete the sale.
8. Celebrate!
Useful links
- Community Land Scotland should be your first point of contact if you’re serious about going forward with a community buyout.
- The Scottish Government site has guidance books, route maps, and application forms for community buyouts.
- Read about the Isle of Eigg community buyout here.
- It’s worth being aware that not all land is available to buy. In the case that you’ve identified land that you would like to work on to help nature, you’ll need to approach the landowner first. Our Land and Landowners resource page has some great advice on doing just this.
- If you’d like to learn more about working with landowners and taking positive action for nature in your local area, you can now join our free online Pioneers Programme course. Find out more about the programme and register for free here.
