Community ownership in Scotland 2019

Main Findings and Introduction

There were 590 assets in community ownership as at December 2019. This is an increase of 28 (5%) from 562 in 2019. All but two of the assets in community ownership are land and/or buildings.

The Highland and Argyll and Bute local authorities together contain 221 assets, 37% of all assets in community ownership.

The 590 assets were owned by 418 community groups and covered an area of 191,290 hectares.

There is increased focus on community ownership in Scotland. The Scottish Government asked the Scottish Land Commission (SLC) to review existing community right to buy mechanisms and recommend how best to enable community ownership.

Following the recommendations of the SLC a National Indicator on community ownership was developed and included in the National Performance Framework in 2019.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the number of title registrations completed in 2020 relating to 2018 and 2019 has been lower than normal. For more information on the effect of this please see the supporting Methodology report.