Land Reform and it's Impact On Stalking and the countryside

Leica Geovid Pro - Green
The whole lot is a massive nightmare, must admit it was scary the orignal post was before the referendum/ proposed land reform bill ever was published.
There is a lot of if's buts and mibee's, no one will really be sure how watered down it actually becomes, but they will try o shaft the so called 'toffs/ land owning elite' but that will only hurt the little man that has to work there or the communties that make a living telated to the estate.

The reason only mega rich folk buy highland (or any estates really) is for a playground or tax dodge cos most will lose money hand over fist, will be very few upland estates make money, and the few that do given the outlay/risk u'd be far better off just investing ur money.

Wot i find really worrying is the propasal to make a children have an equal right to land, so estates going to eldest/only son will have to be split equally amoung the family, I would imagine it would be far easier to push throu and it may be slower but could very easily destroy some big estates.
1 I know of is around 30k acres (of mainly low decentish ground) but 5 of a family that soon becomes 5 estates of 6k acres would not take many generations to break up all but the biggest estates, pretty much by the back door.
 
Just to add there has been a few comment made about mugabe, russia, communism etc and i can see where the similarites lie.

A few years ago i took a train ride throu the ukraine, from poland to Kiev, something like 18ish hours right throu the heart of ukraine.
Ukraine has probably the best most fertile ground in the whole of europe, and was called the bread basket of russia, when the russkies pulled out they must off been farming it as big factory operations with modern equipment (tractors sheds grain silo'd etc) when hey pulled out must of took all the tackle with them but each local got a plot of land.
I have never seen anyhing like it, like stepping back in time 50yrs to pre agri revolution, most are still using horse and cart's to hual stuff about plough and harvest althou u could see plenty harvesting by hand. None of the plots are big enough to afford a tractor and everyone is just living a and to mouth lifestyle in complete poverty.

Absolutely scandalous really.
 
I note that some of you have noticed that my original post was pre referendum and pre the Sturgeon announcement . Remember I was in the room with a person who had attended a land reform committee meeting. The Greens, Labour and the SNP would all like to see land reform take a far bigger step than what has been broadcast already. It beggard belief that the person I met was actually asked to give an opinion and input and classed as "expert" . I am sure she was not the only crank giving evidence. I have to admit that like a lot of the access legislation, it is very craftily drafted and has consequences beyond what is on the surface.

david
 
David

What charities did they represent, if you don't mind me asking?[

Rgds
Mike

David Brown said:
I note that some of you have noticed that my original post was pre referendum and pre the Sturgeon announcement . Remember I was in the room with a person who had attended a land reform committee meeting. The Greens, Labour and the SNP would all like to see land reform take a far bigger step than what has been broadcast already. It beggard belief that the person I met was actually asked to give an opinion and input and classed as "expert" . I am sure she was not the only crank giving evidence. I have to admit that like a lot of the access legislation, it is very craftily drafted and has consequences beyond what is on the surface.

david
Click to expand...
 
I have Croatian friends who I have visited a few times now.

Much of the land there, which is fertlie and potentially productive, lies unmanaged. They have suffered from the equal inheritance system and so as you drive along you will effectively see one small strip farmed and everything else barren. If you try to buy a piece of land you have to try to deal with multiple owners, one plot I was shown had 55 owners - it was about 2 acres.

This plan is not clever at all.

mike

countrryboy said:
Wot i find really worrying is the propasal to make a children have an equal right to land, so estates going to eldest/only son will have to be split equally amoung the family, I would imagine it would be far easier to push throu and it may be slower but could very easily destroy some big estates.
1 I know of is around 30k acres (of mainly low decentish ground) but 5 of a family that soon becomes 5 estates of 6k acres would not take many generations to break up all but the biggest estates, pretty much by the back door.
Click to expand...
 
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countrryboy said:
The reason only mega rich folk buy highland (or any estates really) is for a playground or tax dodge cos most will lose money hand over fist, will be very few upland estates make money, and the few that do given the outlay/risk u'd be far better off just investing ur money.
Click to expand...

I'm not rich by any means but occasionally I save up the cash for a day at red deer in Scotland. A day at hinds costs around £150. One estate that I would go to (I've never stalked on it as I usually elect to go somewhere else but I've fished there and the same basic principles apply to any estate) was said, many years ago, to spend around £1 million per year on upkeep of the roads and tracks. That is about £2700 per day. In winter if you go down there for hinds it is likely that I would have the estate to myself so even ignoring the capital cost of the land and the upkeep of the lodge and the vehicles and the wages for keepers and stalkers the rich English landlord is oppressing me, a poor person, by subsidizing my use of his tracks alone to the sum of over £2500. I would guess that his total subsidy for my day out couldn't be much less than £5000. Clearly I need a communist revolution to stand up for me in the face of such exploitation.

The same rich landlord also oppresses me by allowing me to wander freely across his estate when I wish, and to camp out there should I wish. He also offers me great fishing at a cost that, even as a poor person, I find affordable for the occasional "big day out" each year. He puts a lot of money and effort into conservation and his work and actions are largely responsible for the area being quite remarkable such that visitors come from all over the world to experience it and the wildlife. I don't know the man but have met one of the previous oppressors of the people who owned the estate and he was a very nice man indeed, even to a poor person like me, and I witnessed him chatting with an angler who had come "just to look at the place" never believing that a poor person like him could ever fish such a place. The owner sent the angler out to fish on a world famous salmon loch. Oppression and exploitation like that really makes me just want to go and vote SNP right now to get those English landlords out of Scotland.

During the referendum period several people said to me words along the line of "I'm very uncomfortable with those racist UKIP people in England and want nothing to do with them trying to force immigrants out. And another thing, I want those English people out of my country." That I could see not a single one of the people who said this to me saw the contradiction in what they had just said but it does serve to highlight a very sinister racist element to the SNP regime.
 
Tulloch said:
i would happily take on the deer management lol
Click to expand...
Tulloch I am sure you would but it is a total wipe out they are going for (NO DEER) This chap has made lots of money from the grant schemes so there is cash to be made if you work the system the correct way.
 
caorach said:
I'm not rich by any means but occasionally I save up the cash for a day at red deer in Scotland. A day at hinds costs around £150. One estate that I would go to (I've never stalked on it as I usually elect to go somewhere else but I've fished there and the same basic principles apply to any estate) was said, many years ago, to spend around £1 million per year on upkeep of the roads and tracks. That is about £2700 per day. In winter if you go down there for hinds it is likely that I would have the estate to myself so even ignoring the capital cost of the land and the upkeep of the lodge and the vehicles and the wages for keepers and stalkers the rich English landlord is oppressing me, a poor person, by subsidizing my use of his tracks alone to the sum of over £2500. I would guess that his total subsidy for my day out couldn't be much less than £5000. Clearly I need a communist revolution to stand up for me in the face of such exploitation.

The same rich landlord also oppresses me by allowing me to wander freely across his estate when I wish, and to camp out there should I wish. He also offers me great fishing at a cost that, even as a poor person, I find affordable for the occasional "big day out" each year. He puts a lot of money and effort into conservation and his work and actions are largely responsible for the area being quite remarkable such that visitors come from all over the world to experience it and the wildlife. I don't know the man but have met one of the previous oppressors of the people who owned the estate and he was a very nice man indeed, even to a poor person like me, and I witnessed him chatting with an angler who had come "just to look at the place" never believing that a poor person like him could ever fish such a place. The owner sent the angler out to fish on a world famous salmon loch. Oppression and exploitation like that really makes me just want to go and vote SNP right now to get those English landlords out of Scotland.

During the referendum period several people said to me words along the line of "I'm very uncomfortable with those racist UKIP people in England and want nothing to do with them trying to force immigrants out. And another thing, I want those English people out of my country." That I could see not a single one of the people who said this to me saw the contradiction in what they had just said but it does serve to highlight a very sinister racist element to the SNP regime.
Click to expand...

Caorach , you are just the type of lad who SHOULD be giving "expert " evidence to these committees , not some hut dwelling hippy with a hatred of anyone who is willing to get off their backside and better themselves. Land reform wasn't the only topic that night. It escalated into a row about the redistribution of weath historical aspects of the slave trade and how it was on the back of this landowners made their money. I thought it disgusting and offensive as I am a landowner, I was brought up in a council house, attended a state school but worked bloody hard and bought my ground using taxed income. Now I find I am tarred with the same brush as 17th century slave traders!!!!!!!

David
 
The politics of jealousy is a powerful thing.
All my family were born in the Gorbals, we've all done ok, we all worked for it, we had plenty of incentive and jealousy never entered into it.


Anyone else remember this advert....

"We are the peoples army, all members of the aristocracy are to be arrested!.....take him avay"



Well, it appeals to me sense of humour anyway :)
 
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Agree with Caorach. Every time I am out in the Cairngorms hiking or camping I am thankful for the freedom to roam. Scotland would find itself in a right mess if they perform a land grab. I shudder to think.
Over the years I have met several former land owners from Zimbabwe if thats what lies ahead here then we will be returning to the dark ages.

David Brown, Well done on your achievement you deserve what you have because you earned it when others were sitting on their backsides.
 
caorach said:
I'm not rich by any means but occasionally I save up the cash for a day at red deer in Scotland. A day at hinds costs around £150. One estate that I would go to (I've never stalked on it as I usually elect to go somewhere else but I've fished there and the same basic principles apply to any estate) was said, many years ago, to spend around £1 million per year on upkeep of the roads and tracks. That is about £2700 per day. In winter if you go down there for hinds it is likely that I would have the estate to myself so even ignoring the capital cost of the land and the upkeep of the lodge and the vehicles and the wages for keepers and stalkers the rich English landlord is oppressing me, a poor person, by subsidizing my use of his tracks alone to the sum of over £2500. I would guess that his total subsidy for my day out couldn't be much less than £5000. Clearly I need a communist revolution to stand up for me in the face of such exploitation.

The same rich landlord also oppresses me by allowing me to wander freely across his estate when I wish, and to camp out there should I wish. He also offers me great fishing at a cost that, even as a poor person, I find affordable for the occasional "big day out" each year. He puts a lot of money and effort into conservation and his work and actions are largely responsible for the area being quite remarkable such that visitors come from all over the world to experience it and the wildlife. I don't know the man but have met one of the previous oppressors of the people who owned the estate and he was a very nice man indeed, even to a poor person like me, and I witnessed him chatting with an angler who had come "just to look at the place" never believing that a poor person like him could ever fish such a place. The owner sent the angler out to fish on a world famous salmon loch. Oppression and exploitation like that really makes me just want to go and vote SNP right now to get those English landlords out of Scotland.

During the referendum period several people said to me words along the line of "I'm very uncomfortable with those racist UKIP people in England and want nothing to do with them trying to force immigrants out. And another thing, I want those English people out of my country." That I could see not a single one of the people who said this to me saw the contradiction in what they had just said but it does serve to highlight a very sinister racist element to the SNP regime.
Click to expand...

REALLY !!! Intrigued to know how many miles of road and track on the estate ?? I'm genuinely amazed that amount could be spent on private roads ..... £2700 PER DAY ???
 
rodp said:
REALLY !!! Intrigued to know how many miles of road and track on the estate ?? I'm genuinely amazed that amount could be spent on private roads ..... £2700 PER DAY ???
Click to expand...

That's what the locals said he was spending, I can neither prove it nor justify what it was spent on and I don't build roads so I've no idea if that is a little or a lot in terms of building tracks in remote areas. What I do know is that the estate has bankrupted a succession of previous owners, and some of them were very wealthy people indeed. The owner who was said to put £1 million per year into the tracks didn't keep the estate for very long, in relative terms, and was and still is what I would consider to be rich enough that £1 million might not be a lot of cash. I believe one previous owner, or his heir, is a postman in Australia.
 
I don't agree that public money should be used to buy public and private land in Scotland as is currently happening.

but I think Monbiot makes a very interesting point here:
"It’s no coincidence that the two most regressive forms of taxation in the UK – council tax banding and the payment of farm subsidies – both favour major owners of property. The capping of council tax bands ensures that the owners of £100m flats in London pay less than the owners of £200,000 houses in Blackburn. Farm subsidies, which remain limitless as a result of the Westminster government’s lobbying, ensure that every household in Britain hands £245 a year to the richest people in the land. The single farm payment system, under which landowners are paid by the hectare, is a reinstatement of a medieval levy called feudal aid, a tax the vassals had to pay to their lords."
 
I must admit 1 million on the track maintence alone does seem a lot, (2500 a day would pay for a fairly substantial squad of diggers/machines and men every day, can do a lot in a day) for tracks alone esp every year but i have no doubt it could be easy to spend that putting new tracks in now and again.
Was actually talking about this at the grouse yest with some english grouse keepers and they reckon not unusual to cost 30+ grand afore the digger has even moved with planning and paperwork stuff

But everything else u say is spot on, these big estates cost an absolute fortune to maintain, most of these big fancy houses are money pits to try and keep well maintained and warm. many would be shocked by the poor state many are in when u get away from the main rooms they use.
It's pretty scary that the government listens to these idoiots who obviously dinae have a clue the sort of outlay it costs to run a big estate.

Everyone seems to have a bee in there bonet about 'commercial' grouse shooting but in scotland it really doesnae exist, i doubt there is a handful of moors actually turning a profit year on year, yet many small 1's still employ keepers even thou no realistic chance of shooting so everything benefits from the work they do.

Some very difficult times ahead,
 
Hayduke said:
I don't agree that public money should be used to buy public and private land in Scotland as is currently happening.

but I think Monbiot makes a very interesting point here:
"It’s no coincidence that the two most regressive forms of taxation in the UK – council tax banding and the payment of farm subsidies – both favour major owners of property. The capping of council tax bands ensures that the owners of £100m flats in London pay less than the owners of £200,000 houses in Blackburn. Farm subsidies, which remain limitless as a result of the Westminster government’s lobbying, ensure that every household in Britain hands £245 a year to the richest people in the land. The single farm payment system, under which landowners are paid by the hectare, is a reinstatement of a medieval levy called feudal aid, a tax the vassals had to pay to their lords."
Click to expand...

Bang on and I am sure the Millions of people out of work in the central belt will be hoping this gose through and will support SNP with all there heart.
 
Monbiot (wonder where he/she lives) misses out the "subsidies" that exist to assist folk who live in some remote parts of Scotland,like fuel duty reduction and road equivalent tariff.
The fact is that living in some parts of Scotland is financially difficult,possibly even uneconomic but you can't just draw a line and say that's it,beyond here you've had it mate.
The land useage and management are what matters, so why shouldn't Estates be given some sort of assistance as well?.
Unless of course that doesn't fit into your ideology and the way you want to re-shape the country.
 
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